


the warmth of the enemy

by loverofthenight



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Awkward Romance, Bloodbending (Avatar), Book 1: Water (Avatar), Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Episode: s01e13 The Blue Spirit, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Injury Recovery, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Iroh (Avatar) loves Tea, Katara (Avatar) Is a Hugger, Loss of Parent(s), Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Violence, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Past Child Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Katara (Avatar), Protective Zuko (Avatar), Separation Anxiety, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Shy Zuko, Slow Burn, Stabbing, THE AUTHOR IS DOING HER BEST, Trust Issues, Ursa (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Zhao (Avatar) Is An Asshole, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Zuko Joins The Gaang Early (Avatar), Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, and are aware of what they are getting into, but my version is b1 zuko is very very different too, from zuko!, guess which one she wants to do more?, i’m also gonna add tags as i go, i’m also just kinda planning things as i go, just saying, katara gets taken care of by zuko a lot. it’s what she deserves, katara will also need a hug. zuko’s gonna learn how to be a hugger, katara will learn non bending fighting!, my version of b1 zuko will be similar to canon b1 zuko, so i hope people read the tags, so keep that in mind as you read this, so there’s that!, the author needs sleep but also needs to write this fic, the burn is gonna be SLOW but i’ll do my best for the pacing to feel natural, yay! :D, zuko is the best boy <3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:07:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loverofthenight/pseuds/loverofthenight
Summary: Canon divergence from B1:C13. Katara goes out to get medicine for Sokka, insisting that Aang stay with him—and ends up captured by Zhao.And Zuko, as stealthy as ever as the Blue Spirit, sneaks in to rescue her from Zhao. But nothing goes as planned, and Zuko and Katara are never the same afterwards.
Relationships: Aang & character development, Iroh/tea, Katara/Zuko, Mai/Ty Lee, Sokka/Suki
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53





	1. agni kais

**Author's Note:**

> hello! so, let’s get some things out of the way. one: i’ve never written anything before, despite wanting desperately to be an author, so please be patient with me and leave critiques in the comments on how to be better (if you want to, of course). two: i have not watched a:tla in a while, so i’m sorry if i don’t get some of the characters right, but i’ll do my best. three: some canon things happen in different order. i’m still trying to work things out. four: um, updates might not be frequent, but again—i’ll do my best. please leave a kudos, and comment! thank you, love you.

  
“The Blue Spirit is stupid,” a grumpy, seven year old Azula muttered. 

Nine year old Zuko whipped his head around to look at Azula, eyes wide. And he opened his mouth to disagree, but Ursa, as patient as ever, beat him to it. 

She asked Azula, quietly, “And why do you think that, my love?” 

Zuko could yell at Azula—really, he could. The annoyance was in his blood, wanting so badly to slip out, but he kept his bottom lip between his teeth to stop himself from saying anything mean. He thought the Blue Spirit was amazing.

“He saves those people, but he dies in the end for doing it,” Azula scoffed, folding her arms across her chest, her sharp chin lowered as well as her amber eyes. 

The three of them have seen the play multiple times—and it always ended the same way. 

“How can he do that, knowing what will happen if he gets caught? Isn’t he scared? Why doesn’t the fear stop him?” Azula fired out the questions, visibly annoyed.

Ursa squeezed Zuko’s hand, almost as if knowing he really wanted to rant at Azula about how great he thought the Blue Spirit was. Zuko frowned, glancing at his fingers intertwined with Ursa’s, before looking back at his mom and his sister. 

Ursa attempted to hold Azula’s hand, but Azula refused promptly. Seconds after her daughter rejected her hand holding, Ursa placed her hand on Azula’s shoulder instead, and would squeeze it if Azula let out a particularly annoyed huff. 

Zuko, however, relished in any physical or verbal affection he could get from Ursa. He zoned out, then, thoughts of Ozai, his hard-to-please father, flooding his mind. He doesn’t hear Ursa and Azula talking, he doesn’t pay the play any attention. He already knew the ending, after all. 

He’ll practice firebending forms at home. Maybe he could get Azula to practice with him. She was a beginner, too, even though she’s already progressing faster than him.

He’ll catch up with her soon...right?

The annoyance at Azula simmered, as doubt tangled itself into his insecurities. He could practically see his father, tall and intimidating, scoffing at him, looking at him with something Zuko didn’t know the word for, but he knew it wasn’t good. Was it distaste? No, it was stronger than that. He shoved some thoughts away before they even had the chance to form, firmly believing that Ozai just wants Zuko to be the best he can be—because he loves Zuko that much. 

Right?

Beside him, while his mind was full with not so pleasant thoughts, Ursa was talking to Azula about the Blue Spirit, the main character of the play: The Journey of The Blue Spirit.

“Because, my love, despite what your father tries to teach you, fear isn’t that powerful,” Ursa said, and Azula looked up with disbelief. She opened her mouth to speak—no, to protest, but Ursa continued. “And, as I’ve said before: the Blue Spirit is brave, selfless. Yes, he’s scared of getting killed—he’s downright terrified!—but that’s what makes him so brave, he helps the villagers regardless of how scared he feels. And he put others before himself, that’s what makes him so selfless. He’s not stupid, my love. Not at all.”

Silently, with a lump in her throat, Azula reached for Ursa’s hand, and held it. Ursa intertwined their fingers, and smiled gently, squeezing her daughter’s tiny, tiny hand. She worried if Azula would physically grow—the young firebender had always been small, too small for her age; she knew, however, that Azula made up for her small frame with her natural ability at firebending.

“I know he’s your favorite character,” Ursa whispered to Azula with a soft chuckle, “you don’t need to pretend with me, my love—I know you as well as the back of my hand.” 

“I know,” Azula whispered, and leaned her head on Ursa. “I love you, mom.”

Ursa looked at Azula, her eyes glittering, gleaming with unconditional love. “I love you, too, Azula.”

Beside them, a young Zuko was silent with a loud, loud mind. Beside them, Zuko’s soft heart hardened with resolve, with determination. 

Beside them, Zuko had made a decision.

—

“You can’t seriously be considering this,” Ursa whispered to Ozai, doing her best to be calm, to keep her rage at bay. “You know he’s not ready, Ozai.” She wore her signature red robes, her gold hair clip nestled snugly in her hair. Ursa looked exactly like royalty, despite not even being born into nobility. No—she was born in the colonies, and raised by herbalists.

“Tell the boy, then,” Ozai stared down at her, and raised his eyebrows. “Tell him he’s not ready for an Agni Kai. Tell him—and shatter his hardly existing confidence.” He wore his red robe, too, along with the gold hair clip only royalty could wear. 

Except, he acted like he belonged with royalty—because he did. Ursa inhaled deeply through her nose, not responding. Whether it was by her husband, Ozai and his—his _behavior_ towards her, or Fire Lord Azulon never really giving her existence much acknowledgement, she always got reminded: she did not belong in the palace, she did not belong here. 

She never did. She did not belong in the royal red robe, and only ever fooled herself to thinking she could belong. 

Iroh was the most welcoming member of the royal family, but Iroh last wrote a letter to them many months ago, informing them that he would eventually conquer Ba Sing Se. Along with the letter, Iroh had sent a package of gifts for Zuko and Azula—a dagger for Zuko, and a doll for Azula that she burned soon after she received it—for their birthdays. He sent the package before their birthdays, wished the both of them a happy birthday—they had the same birth month—and said he would regret not being able to spend their birthdays with them. He wrote them separate letters, too; Iroh had sent the gifts early to compensate for his absence. 

Azula turned eight, and Zuko turned ten.

Of course—all of that was before Lu Ten died in the war. After Lu Ten died, Iroh had sent a short, short letter, saying he would not be home for a long time. That was six months ago, that Iroh sent that letter. It was almost a year since he sent her children the birthday packages.

However, just two weeks after Lu Ten’s unfortunate death, Ozai attempted to get Azulon to make him the heir to the throne. It did not go down well. Since Azulon was feeling merciful that day, he banished Ozai from the palace grounds for only a week. He hadn’t spoken to Ursa or the children that whole week, not that he did it often before Ozai’s brief banishment. 

Unlike Ursa, though—Zuko and Azula belonged in the palace.

“I always knew you were weak, Ursa,” Ozai whispered tauntingly, his expression almost amused, almost smug—but, as always, there was nothing in him. Nothing at all. “I thought you would at least try harder for the boy—“

“Who is his opponent, Ozai?” Ursa interrupted him, and Ozai, for once, stopped himself from ‘correcting’ her behavior. Instead, he smirked devilishly, and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t reply, and just stared at Ursa, something dangerous glinting in his eyes. “Who did you choose to fight against Zuko in the Agni Kai?” She demanded, her hands curling into fists, her nails digging deep into her palms.

“My precious, darling Ursa,” Ozai had cooed at her with a teeth-rotting sweetness—and a bitter poison interlaced itself with the sweetness so well, that if Ursa hadn’t known Ozai as well as she did, she wouldn’t have been able to detect the poison at all. But the fact is—she did know him, she knows the poison in him all too well. His smile was too gleeful, too content. It made her want to throw up. That kind of smile from Ozai—it never, ever meant anything good.

“You’re looking at him.”

“No,” Ursa’s jaw slackened, and she tasted hot bile on her tongue. She swallowed, gripping some of the fabric of her robe in her right hand so tightly, her knuckles turned white. When she pulled her hand away from the fabric of her robe, it was wrinkled. Could she stop this Agni Kai from happening? Was it too late? Was her son’s fate already sealed? “No—no. The Fire Sages wouldn’t—they couldn’t possibly—“

“They approved this morning,” Ozai cut her off, as if he was correcting her about something that didn’t matter. Well...it didn’t matter to him. “And you know my father would never miss an opportunity to see an Agni Kai. He’s won every single one he’s ever been in, you know.” And he was still using that sweet tone, still using that smile that only ever came if something terrible was going to happen.

“Spare him,” Ursa’s voice broke, hands trembling. “I beg of you, Ozai. Spare him.” Anger was no longer the emotion she was feeling. Instead, grief was already squeezing her heart, her lungs. How could she still be breathing, still be alive—with all the pain inside of her that made her feel so, so numb? “Don’t hurt him, don’t fight him, don’t—don’t kill him. Please.” She was tempted to add ‘he’s your son,’ but she knew: Ozai never cared about Zuko. Or Azula. Or her.

He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. 

His smile widened, pearly white teeth showing, and Ursa felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach. “Then I suggest we make a deal, Ursa.” His voice was no longer sweet, no longer hiding the poison that was in his tone. Maybe he never had to hide the poison in the first place. He never had to hide it with Ursa. No, no—if anything, ever since they met, Ozai had seeped his poison into Ursa’s being and soul, and her doom was always impending, always in the shadows.

In that moment, though, Ursa stood straight. Her doom was no longer impending—she knew that now. In fact, her doom was the very person standing right in front of her. 

All she could do was face it head on. She had to, if it meant her son would live. It went without saying she would do the same for Azula, but Ozai would never harm Azula. Not when she was a young, blossoming, promising prodigy.

Ursa inhaled, willing herself to be brave, selfless. She asked, “What do you want, Ozai?” 

Ozai just gave her a smile that looked borderline painful.

Later that night, she left Zuko her old Blue Spirit mask, and she left Azula her old, silver necklace. Zuko loved the Blue Spirit even more than she did and that was really saying something. Azula once expressed her desire for the silver necklace, and knowing Azula, if she says she wants something once, it usually means she’ll always want it. Ursa had that necklace since before she was a Princess; she only wore it when they went to the theater. It was one of the only things she had from her past, but she still gave it to Azula. She knew Azula would wear it more than she did. 

Both of them got a letter from Ursa. She woke them both up to say goodbye, to give them one last hug and one last kiss. Her heart had never felt so heavy in her chest.

Ursa had to do the right thing—and she did, even if she knew the consequences.

The next day, Fire Lord Azulon passed away, leaving Prince Ozai to be crowned the new Fire Lord, and Princess Ursa was nowhere to be found.

—

Just two years later, Ursa’s efforts were burnt to ashes. 

Zuko still ended up in an Agni Kai with his ruthless father—and woke up on a ship, with the news that he was banished forever...unless he found the Avatar, and brought him to the Fire Nation. He had lost all his honor, his nation, his right to the throne and it bruised him badly.

All he had to do to get it all back was bring the Avatar to the Fire Nation. On paper, it seemed so easy to do. Saying it was also—you guessed it—easy. In the beginning, it was just...so easy. He was twelve, angry and stubborn; Zuko refused to give up. The task in itself of finding the Avatar hadn’t been impossible to him just yet. He didn’t want it to be impossible.

Then, when he turned sixteen, he had never been so hopeless. Four years at sea, four years of traveling the whole world, four years of desperate, relentless searching—and...nothing.

Then—then he saw a bright, blue light in the South Pole, beaming toward the sky. Relief washed over him in waves. He was—he was going home. Just when all his hope was gone, the Spirits decided to finally go easy on him. 

Oh—he had never been so, so wrong. 


	2. fire is destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zhao is the worst person ever but he doesn’t die in this chapter. Unfortunately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there’s mention of burning and blood in this chapter but it’s not really that graphic??? and fight scenes really aren’t my thing??? i don’t know im just kind of learning as i go. hope you guys like this!!! :)

“Here, this should help your headache,” Katara murmurs, pressing a wet, half-strained cloth against Sokka’s forehead. She moves away from him quickly and he squeezes loudly. 

She cringes when Sokka starts coughing, and begins rummaging through their things, “Oh, Sokka. I have to give you some medicine.” Katara squints at a container’s smudged label. It was Sokka’s handwriting—so even if it wasn’t smudged with water, she would still struggle to make out what it says. Sokka never was good with writing, but he had really liked to read.

She gives up trying to read the label, and opens it. She sniffs it experimentally. “Oh—it’s toothpaste.” Katara opens some more containers, and eventually, she realizes that she’s looked through everything they have. They don’t have any medicine, not even a medicinal tea packet. Figures. They could pack salt, tea packets, seal jerky, threads and needles, amongst other things, but they couldn’t pack medicine.

Hama was a great teacher in both healing and combative waterbending—and it was especially impressive since she escaped from a Fire Nation prison—but Hama had said it’s better for illnesses like fevers or colds to just run their courses. She said it was best to soothe a sick person’s pain with tea and medicine, because using waterbending to try and rush someone’s body to heal from a cold or a fever could have dire consequences on the body. Hama even gave her a few scrolls on different healing techniques; she told Katara that her combative waterbending was ‘most satisfactory’. (Hama was better at combative waterbending and advised Katara to learn as much healing as she could at the North. She said she hadn’t bothered to learn healing as much when she was younger. Still, she did know a lot about healing and helped Katara when she could).

Despite Hama’s praise, Katara still thought her combative waterbending wasn’t that great. She wasn’t a master; she couldn’t teach Aang as well as a master could. Aang wants her to teach him but she refuses. They’re going to the North Pole to get Aang a waterbending master (Hama was blunt and said she didn’t want to teach Aang). 

Besides, shortly after Aang arrived at the South Pole, the Fire Nation showed up—so it wasn’t like they could’ve stayed if they wanted to.

(Aang told her later on that the monks said he had to train at the North Pole, anyways. He said he wished he remembered it earlier—and he also said something about the monks informing him that the North Pole needed the Avatar for something important. The monks hadn’t told him what the ‘something important’ was—which he confessed to feeling guilty about. Aang felt as if, maybe the monks did tell him, and maybe he just forgot what it was. She gave him a hug and assured him that it’ll all be alright, and it made him feel better. Katara didn’t want to make him feel worse by pointing out that the North Pole probably didn’t need the Avatar anymore—because he was in an iceberg for a hundred years—so she busied herself with mending Sokka’s socks.)

(They can’t get to the North Pole fast enough.)

“Aang, I’m gonna go get some medicine for Sokka,” Katara calls out to the young monk, grabbing her water skin. Aang looks over at her with a frown—their talk in the cave still seems to be on his mind. He hasn’t spoken much since they found somewhere to camp out. 

Aang turns around to look at her. He walks up to her, gray eyes still showing hints of sadness, of regret from running away all those years ago. Before Katara could comfort him properly besides telling him a gentle “ _Well, maybe it was meant to be, Aang_ ”—the fisherman’s wife came and got them. 

“But Katara,” Aang says quietly. “I could—I could go. I could use my airbending to go really fast and I would be back so fast. I could—“

“No,” Katara shakes her head, looking at him. The fire crackles, embers flying about. The lively fire illuminates the pair of friends in orange, yellow. “You can’t go, Aang. I mean it.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but Katara beats him to it. “Aang, no. You’re wanted by the Fire Nation. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if they caught you. You know what they wanted—no, what they _tried_ to do to the waterbenders from the South Pole. They tried to take their bending.” 

Hama told her how they used the waterbenders for _experiments_ , and that she escaped using bloodbending before they could do it to her. All the water benders they tried to experiment on died. Hama was desperate and angry, and used the full moon’s power for vengeance. She never went into full detail of what she did with bloodbending, but Katara figured it out.

Katara refused to use bloodbending for anything other than healing; Hama never mentioned it again after Katara learned how to do it.

“I know,” Aang mumbles, fiddling with his fingers. “I just...I don’t want you to get hurt, Katara. Me and Sokka—we need you, you know.” His voice breaks with vulnerability and Katara feels her heart ache. 

She pulls Aang into a tight hug, a warm feeling in her chest. “Aang. I’ll be okay. I’ll be back before you know it,” she whispers reassuringly. “I know what herbs and plants to get. Sokka would get sick at home—cause he can be a clumsy oaf, and he would fall in the water, and I would be the one to help him get better. Sometimes, Gran Gran would help, too. But, I’ll be back soon, so don’t worry about me too much.” 

In the South, everything would be dried, preserved, frozen or just have _something_ done to it so it would last longer. Gran Gran would teach her which dried herbs and plants were best for sickness, relaxation, etc. Katara figures fresh herbs and plants would be better, and that they wouldn’t look much different from their dried or persevered counterparts. 

She feels Aang nod against her. “Okay, Katara,” he says and pulls away from her. Gray eyes stare at her. “But if you don’t come back—“

“I’ll be back,” Katara interrupts, crossing her arms. She doesn’t want to think about any other possibility, about _not coming back._

“If you don’t come back...what do I do?” Aang asks in a small voice.

She attaches the water skin to herself and grabs an empty container for Sokka’s medicine. “Okay, Aang, let’s say I don’t come back—hypothetically. You leave with Sokka on Appa. No exceptions.”

If she’s gone for too long, it means the Fire Nation got her. And that meant that it wouldn’t be long before they found Aang and Sokka. 

“But—“

“Aang. I will be back,” Katara grabs the map, just in case she gets lost. “But if it gets to be night time and I don’t come back, you leave with Sokka on Appa. No matter what.”

Aang looks at her, and she can tell he wants to argue with her about this, but he just nods his head silently, and sits down by the fire, by the end of Sokka’s bedroll. Katara tells Sokka goodbye from a distance, and gives Aang another hug. She gives Appa and Momo their own goodbyes, too.

Then Katara leaves, and sends a silent prayer to the Spirits when her back is turned to her brother, Aang, and the animal companions. 

She’ll be fine. She’ll find all the things she needs and she’ll be back. Soon. 

She has to.

—

Katara has been walking for a long time. She hasn’t found any of the things she needs—she couldn’t even find anything for a medicinal tea. Katara groans, stopping to sit against a tree, feet aching. She unrolls her map and frowns as she looks over it.

She has no idea where she is. 

According to the map, there should be a river close by. Katara inhales deeply and tries to sense her element. And...nothing. She must be too far away from it; she can still feel the water in the air, though. It’s all around her. Katara puts the map down, and raises a hand. 

Water forms into her hand, in a ball. She freezes it then turns it back to water, for no reason other than the fact she can. Katra looks at the map, playing with the water in her left hand. “A herbalist,” she mumbles. Katara frowns. She thought she could find all the herbs and such by herself, but that wasn’t working. She thought the herbs and plants were common and that she could find them with ease, but apparently not.

She gets up, putting the water into her water skin. She gathers a bit more water, enough to fill it up. Katara starts walking to the herbalist, giving the sky a glance. She still has time to get back to them.

And she will go back to them. She can feel it.

—

“Frozen frogs,” Katara huffs, grabbing them and putting them into the container she bought with her. “She better not be lying to me.” The herbalist was gray haired and was talking and walking about with a black mortar and pestle. Katar had run in, explaining that she needed a cure for her brother and the herbalist started making something in the mortar and pestle.

Katara had reached for it when the herbalist put in the supposed last ingredient—but she just slapped her hand away! Katara, at that point, was losing patience. The herbalist just calmly explained that it was Minyuki’s special meal and that what Katara needed for her brother was frozen frogs. 

Katara asked if she was crazy. The herbalist just smiled and said yes. Before Katara left, though, the herbalist gave her a scroll...on burns. Salves and pastes and all kinds of things for burns and burn scars. “The Fire Nation is close by,” is all the herbalist said. Katara didn’t feel like explaining she was a healer, so she just took the scroll and left.

And she’s now in an ankle deep river, grabbing frozen frogs. She loves water, of course she does—she’s a waterbender. But that doesn’t mean she wants to be in green, murky water—Katara yelps when she feels something swim past her ankle, grazing her skin with scales. She screws the container shut with a huff. 

Now, to get back to Sokka and Aang with these stupid frozen frogs—

An arrow pins her right arm to the huge log behind her before she can blink. She shoves the container with frozen frogs in her robe, between her breasts. Katara quickly makes a shield of ice, and the arrows fly through it, shattering it within seconds. Katara sends large icicles through the forest, thinking that her attackers are in the higher ground, which isn’t good for her at all.

Katara makes a thicker ice shield, just to buy her a bit of time. She tries to remove the arrow with desperation, but it doesn’t work. It’s inches deep into the log, and—the ice shield gets shattered again, her legs get pinned while she’s distracted. 

She can’t see who’s doing it—she can’t—

Her left arm gets pinned despite her best efforts. 

Katara could cry. 

Really. 

She could.

—

“Hello, Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh greets him with a warm smile. “Will you join us for music night?” He asks quite cheerfully, lingering at the doorway. Zuko’s disguise is under his pillow, waiting to be used. Uncle Iroh has a cup of tea in his hands, steam coming up from it. “We could use a—“

“Uncle, I’m going to bed. Maybe next time I’ll join you and the crew for music night, okay?” Zuko gets under the covers and he doesn’t have to look at Uncle Iroh to know the old man is smiling at him. 

“Okay, Prince Zuko. Have a good night.” With that, Uncle Iroh closes the door. Zuko waits for a few minutes then gets out of bed and stretches. Zuko always makes sure Uncle Iroh is far away from his room before he makes his escape. He gets into his black clothes and grabs his—no. He grabs _Ursa’s_ Blue Spirit mask and puts it on, almost as if it’s part of his daily routine. 

He inhales deeply and closes his eyes. If he focuses enough, thinks hard enough, he can almost see the turtle-ducks in the pond, the garden with its flowers blooming—he can almost see Ursa.

He tells himself he wants to capture the Avatar to please his father. And that’s what he believes, what he thinks, but sometimes…

Sometimes, he thinks he just wants Ursa back. He needs to know, needs to ask her: “Why did you leave? Did father tell the truth when he said you didn’t love us anymore?

He wants to ask her a million questions, and there’s this—this feeling he has, right in the pit of his stomach, that tells him: _‘_ You’ll never know what happened, Zuko. You will never find out.’

Thoughts of home, of Ursa, of Ozai, of Azula invade his mind. He thinks of Lu Ten, for a second. Could he have saved his older cousin, by any chance? What would Zuko say to Lu Ten, if he somehow could turn back time? 

He shakes his head. He knows what he’d say, what he’d do.

He’d say: “Don’t fight in the war, Lu Ten. Your dad will never be the same after you die. Nothing will be the same after you die.” 

And Lu Ten, being Lu Ten, would just smile down at him. He’d tell Zuko not to worry. He’d say many things to Zuko, to assure him and comfort him, and he would leave to fight in the war anyways. 

Lu Ten never thought he wouldn’t make it back home. Lu Ten—and Zuko himself—had thought he’d come back home, safe and sound. And that didn’t happen.

And everything changed.

He sneaks under the Pohuai Stronghold, the prison that’s holding the Avatar’s friend—the stupid waterbender. He didn’t know her name, if he was gonna be honest. Zuko couldn’t really introduce himself to her when every time they were face to face, they were fighting. 

She’s the enemy.

That’s all she is.

_‘_ So why are you saving her? Turn back,’ the voice in his mind says to him, almost in annoyance, ‘You don’t need her to capture the Avatar, anyways. It’s better that she’s locked up. It’ll be easier for you if you just leave her in the prison to rot.’

But the other voice—the one that sounds eerily like Ursa—tells him, ‘Zuko, no. You know what Zhao will do to her to get information. He’ll do anything to get what he wants. You have to save her. Zuko, you know better—and you’re already here, aren’t you? If you really thought it would’ve been better for her to stay in prison, you wouldn’t have come at all. You even got her a canteen of water, Zuko. You’re not as bad as you try to be.’

“You have a good heart,” Zuko whispers to himself. Ursa said that to him, once, forever ago. 

And maybe—maybe it’s true. 

Maybe.

He takes a moment to himself and focuses, hard—he hears his mother’s voice, murky sewer water just a few feet away from him, the moonlight shining its pale light through the sewer drainer’s bars, onto him. 

The moonlight casts a shadow of him and Zuko looks at it. 

He swallows and listens to his mother’s voice replaying in his head the way it always does. “Zuko, my love,” Ursa had said to him that night, “you’re such a caring person. You have a good heart, a good soul. Never forget that, and—“

_—Never forget who you are._

He inhales deeply, and jumps up, grabbing tightly onto the sewer drainage bars. With his heart drumming hard against his ribcage, Zuko gets out of the sewer when he makes sure no one is around.

—

Katara tugs hard at the chains binding her, knowing it’s pointless to try, but she does it anyway. The chains are so uncomfortable, she can’t move her body at all. She can move her head and neck, though. Katara briefly ponders over freezing the water in the air over her fingers, over her hands. She tosses that thought away with a frown. 

She can’t even move her wrists, so what good would that do? 

Katara glances around her cell. It seems like she’s only one in here, which she doesn’t mind. However, Katara thinks it’s strange no one’s come in yet. A lot of time has passed since she was chained up.

In fact, she doesn’t have any idea what time it is, doesn’t know how long she’s been chained up, but she feels the time passing by, slowly, slowly. It must be night time by now, if she had to guess. She could feel the moon, the power it gives her. She knows it’s not a full moon, though. She knows what a full moon’s power feels like.

Katara just hopes Aang kept true to his word and left.

The door opens. 

“Hello, waterbender,” a man walks into the room alone, standing tall. Instantly, Katara can tell he wasn’t a good person, if his cruel smile is anything to go by. He has sideburns, and his hair is both gray and brown. “My name is Admiral Zhao, and you can tell me where the Avatar is right now, and you don’t have to get hurt.”

The man, Zhao, apparently, stands in front of her. He summons a fire in the palm of his right hand, looking right at her. 

“I would really hate to burn you, waterbender. Just cooperate with me, and tell me what I need to know, and this will be over very quickly.” The fire in his hand grows.

Katara glances at the fire in his hand, glares at him fiercely and grits out, “I will never tell you anything, no matter what you do to me. You will never have the Avatar.” She keeps her chin high with defiance. 

A small, small cowardly part of her tells her to give in—to tell him what he wants to know about Aang, because she doesn’t want to get burned. 

She doesn’t want a scar like...like Zuko’s. 

She remembers seeing it for the first time and thinking about how painful it must have been.

Katara silences the cowardly part of her with ease. She refuses to be afraid. 

The last time she was afraid was a few years ago—when her mother was killed, and the smell of her charred flesh burned itself into her nose, and the memory of seeing her dead body was permanently embedded into her brain.

She hates the smell of burned flesh. She doesn’t want to know how it feels to have her skin burned like that. 

But the world needs Aang, and she can’t let him get captured just because she’s a coward.

She can’t be a coward.

Not now. 

Not ever.

Zhao’s eyebrows rise almost in amusement. “You should tell me, waterbender. Unless you want to be burned.” But he smiles—smiles as if burning someone brought him joy. It probably did. Fire benders probably burn people as a hobby. 

“So, this is your last chance before I burn you, waterbender. Tell me what I need to know. Where’s the Avatar?” He questions, stepping closer, the fire in his hand flickering.

“You will never know. You will never have the Avatar,” Katara tells him, strangely calm, as if her body and mind weren’t screaming at her to do something. To hurt him. 

But she can’t move any of her limbs, and they took her waterskin, and she just feels tired. She can feel his blood, just barely. But when she’d bloodbend at home, it would drain her so much, even on a full moon.

Katara blinks slowly as Zhao and his fire get way too close.

She just wants her mom.

That’s all.

She didn’t ask for any of this.

“You know, it's a shame I’ll have to burn you, waterbender,” Zhao starts with burning her hair slowly, his sinister smile making her want to vomit. “You could‘ve given me the Avatar’s location. You could’ve prevented this from happening. But you didn’t.”

His fire gets dangerously close to her skin and she trembles, praying to every Spirit she knows, as tears go down her cheeks.

Zhao looks into her eyes and whispers, “You chose to get burned, and now, you get to live with it, waterbender.” He makes his tone sound sad and disappointed, but he smiles at her, and raises his fire engulfed hand.

Katara swallows hard; she accepts what happens before it happens. 

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t scream in pain when it happens.

—

Zuko hears the scream and it stops him right in his tracks, even as a guard runs up to him. That scream sounds like his, when he got burned four years ago. He knocks out the guard running toward him and quickly handles the other guards that go up to him, as well. Zuko runs toward the door where he’s sure the scream came from and busts it open with a powerful kick.

Zhao turns around instantly and firebends at him. But Zuko dodges his fireblasts and fireballs with complete ease, and then, Zuko gets close enough to Zhao, and—

And Zhao’s blood stains the dual dao sword in his left hand. Zuko swallows, pulling his sword out of Zhao’s left side and Zhao falls to the floor, a pool of blood forming. 

Zuko looks at the waterbender and she’s unconscious, her head tilting to her right. The scent of her burned flesh almost makes him recoil, but he stands his ground, his heart beating fast as he examines her burn. The burn Zhao gave her is on her left side; it starts at the bottom of her neck and spans over a good portion of her shoulder.

It looks like a handprint. Her burn uncannily reminds Zuko of his in the way it’s too sharp, too detailed to have been done from a distance. It was done hand to shoulder directly and it stops at the shoulder bone, where the shoulder connects with the the arm.

(Zuko fears that if he had been a second or so more late, Zhao would have burned the waterbender’s whole arm, whole body.)

Zuko slices her free of the chains within seconds, sheathing his swords on his hip rather than his back, and puts her on his back, carefully placing her arms around his neck. There’s a container on the ground; he doesn’t know what the container has inside of it, so he kicks it out of his way.

Ideally, the girl would be conscious, not burned and working with him to escape.

Zuko suddenly remembers her necklace—the betrothal one he found on that ship.

He’ll give it to her when she wakes up—no pirates required.


	3. something we have in common

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko needs to escape and find Katara some water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, just to be clear—i didn’t mean for this chapter to be so long. it just happened?? also, i’m gonna try to make this fic so that zuko and katara help each other grow as people, you know? (instead of just zuko’s arc revolving around being better because of and/or for katara) like zuko becomes good, right? but the thing is, even in the show in book one, he was still good (he had lil moments of goodness imo). in this fic, i kind of wanted to enforce a personal headcanon—that ursa was the voice telling him to be good, and that ozai was the voice telling him to be bad. he’ll cave in to ozai’s voice, he’ll cave into ursa’s, etc. in the show, right, in the crossroads of destiny, iroh and azula are the ones telling him to choose between good and bad—and i always kinda thought that was an indirect way to make zuko choose between ozai and ursa. 
> 
> so in this fic, zuko is gonna struggle with ursa’s voice and ozai’s voice in his mind (basically they are the two sides of his conscious). 
> 
> but i like to think zuko will choose ursa most of the time,,, cause he thinks if he chooses what would make his mom proud, he’ll be able to find her.
> 
> and i like to think that ursa tried to teach both of her kids life lessons (being kind, patient and empathetic to people, etc etc) while she was still around them. she knew ozai wasn’t gonna teach them any of that cause ozai is a piece of shit. 
> 
> anyways! enjoy the chapter!

Zuko runs out the cell when he gets the injured waterbender on his back. He closes the door silently, the waterbender’s arms and legs wrapped around him tightly. 

His hand stays on the door handle, and he looks at the metal door. Everything in the Pohuai Stronghold is metal. Could he melt the door and doorway together with his firebending? Should he try to do that?

He thinks better of it—he doesn’t have too much time to try doing that—and turns around. Zuko adjusts the waterbender on his back, and runs, thinking it’s better to try melting metal when he isn’t carrying a burned girl on his back. 

He isn’t one for good choices, but he figures that that’s a good choice. 

“Hey! What are you doing?” A guard yells from behind him. Zuko just runs faster. Faintly, he hears the guard yell for backup and there’s the sound footsteps running through the hall, which makes his stomach churn with unease. Zuko makes it through another doorway, slamming the door shut and locking it. Extremely doubtful that it’ll work—that his fire will melt metal—he firebends at the door, the door’s lock, and the doorway, and to his surprise, the metal actually does melt. 

When he thinks it’s all melted together enough, he turns around, processing what he just did. If Zuko wasn’t running for the waterbender’s life and his own, he would definitely be celebrating the fact that he can melt metal.

He decides to celebrate it later (and obviously not tell Uncle Iroh how exactly he discovered his ability to melt metal. Zuko doesn’t want to hear a lecture full of weird metaphors that don’t make sense).

Zuko starts running again, praying to the Spirits loudly in his mind. Miraculously, he makes it out of the prison, but Zuko hears a handful of guards running after him, and someone—not Zhao, obviously—is making some commands rather loudly.

But when the man making commands suddenly yells out that Blue Spirit is an enemy to the Fire Nation, Zuko can’t help but freeze in place.

He’s an enemy to his homeland.

But maybe if he turned himself and the waterbender in, then...maybe—

‘No, Zuko. The Blue Spirit is the enemy to the Fire Nation. No one knows that you’re the Blue Spirit,’ the voice that isn’t Ursa insists. The voice...it almost sounds like—like Ozai. ‘As long as no one knows that you’re the Blue Spirit, you can still regain your honor. You can still go home and be someone who your dad will be proud of.’

Zuko bites his bottom lip and sighs in frustration. He can’t think about this right now; he doesn’t have the time!

Zuko sprints when the guards are a safe distance away from him and the waterbender, and he sticks to the walls’ shadows as much as he can, keeping his footsteps silent like he was taught. Zuko crouches down when he hears guards close by and throws a sizable rock to his left as hard as he can. 

It’s more difficult for him to do everything with someone’s dead weight on him, but he manages it, and stands up, listening. He really hopes that it works—that the guards get distracted by the rock.

A beat. 

“Over there! I think I heard something!” A guard cries out and the handful of guards run to where he threw the rock. 

Zuko’s shoulders slightly relax. He honestly can’t believe that worked. His ideas never work out that well for him.

He starts running again, looking for any way he can escape. All of the gates are already closed, and the alarm is still blaring. Feeling like he doesn’t have many options, Zuko runs towards the sewer drain from before when he spots it. 

As carefully as he can, he lays the waterbender down on the ground on her back. Zuko grabs a hold of her from under her armpits, making sure not to touch her burn with his slightly shaking hands. He exhales slowly and hooks his legs through the sewer drain bars, then moves the girl through the bars slowly, slowly. Zuko even moves half of his body between the bars to make sure she lands safely in the sewer. 

Zuko finally gets the waterbender in the sewer, on her back yet again. He lets out a sigh of relief. He tells himself that he’s gonna make it. 

Then the firebender yelps loudly in surprise and in pain. An arrow got shot into his back, into his shoulder blade—then another arrow got shot into his right calf. The pain is what makes him let go of the sewer drain’s bars. 

Zuko falls through the sewer drain, landing next to the unconscious waterbender on his elbows and knees. He gets up, and another arrow flies through the drain. Zuko burns it before it can reach the waterbender.

He curses quietly under his breath, pulling the waterbender and himself away from the sewer drain above them.

He did it just in time, too—if he had waited a few seconds more, then all the countless arrows that went through the drain would be in the both of them. 

Zuko takes a second to reach over and grab the arrow in his calf, and burns it until its ashes are in his hand. He flicks his wrist, and the ashes land in the sewer water. The tip of the arrow stays in his calf; he can’t take that part out yet. Zuko moves his Blue Spirit mask so it stays on the back of his neck securely.

Zuko grunts, lifts the waterbender into his arms, and starts running. He’ll put the waterbender in clean water eventually; he’ll stop running when he’s sure they’re safe.

He’ll do everything when he has the time.

—

Zuko doesn’t keep track of the time, but he runs for a really long time in the sewers. He keeps going straight, ignoring the other paths in the sewers that he sees every once and a while. Zuko doesn’t necessarily pay attention when he stops hearing the guards’ footsteps from the ground above him.

He just focuses on running as far away as he can.

And he does just that. He runs until he sees the end of the sewer—a large, wide, circular opening with the dark, murky sewer water appearing like it’s pouring out of it.

Zuko frowns and looks at the exit warily (for all he knows, the guards from the Pohuai Stronghold could be waiting out there), but he doesn’t have the energy to turn around and find another way out of the sewers.

At least it looks like it’s still nighttime. Zuko hopes that that’s a good sign for him and the waterbender. He thinks it might be.

Zuko takes a deep breath as he gingerly holds the waterbender against him with his left arm, and reaches for the arrow in his back with his right arm. He burns the arrow in his back like he did with the one in his calf—he leaves the arrow tip inside of his body. Zuko moves the waterbender around and lifts her onto his back (his arms are exhausted from carrying her for so long). 

Her arms and legs are clinging to him once more; she snores softly, her cheek resting on his good shoulder. 

Zuko is kind of glad she’s still unconscious at the moment. The Spirits know that she was awake right now, she and Zuko would be arguing right about...something, that’s for certain. If the waterbender was awake right now...Zuko thinks that they would probably argue about the Avatar.

Zuko runs to the end of the sewer and pokes his head out, just to make sure there’s no one near by. The murky water is all in a large, man made pond. At least it’s not attached to a river or a stream? It probably _used_ to be attached to a natural body of water—but right now it isn’t and he’s glad for that.

Mainly because the waterbender needs clean water for her burn. 

(He once heard Uncle Iroh say that waterbenders have a natural healing ability, and maybe he has wishful thinking right now, but he just really hopes the waterbender can heal.)

Zuko carefully jumps down from the sewer, cringing at the noise the contaminated water makes when he lands in it. He quickly gets out of it, thankful that the water ended up being just ankle deep. 

Zuko runs into the forest, adjusting and tightening his grip on the waterbender. He pauses when she snuggles into his good shoulder. Well...maybe snuggling isn’t the right word for what she just did to him. She kind of—just—rubbed her face against his shoulder and squeezed her arms around his neck for a few seconds. Then she let out a soft sigh.

Is that what people call snuggling? Zuko truly doesn’t know the answer to the question, if he’s gonna be honest with himself. 

Nevertheless, he keeps running.

And when he finally reaches a river, Zuko swears that for a moment, he could cry in relief. He lays the waterbender down next to the river and he sits down next to her.

Zuko grabs the dagger his Uncle gave him years ago; he always keeps it on his person. Zuko moves his leg so his foot is on the ground. This way, he’ll be able to see his wound better. 

He cuts off the fabric on his right leg up to his knee. The arrow wound on his right calf really made his pants wet and sticky with his blood. He frowns and discards the blood soaked part of his pants behind him. Zuko cuts off the left side of his pants up to his knee, and cuts that in half. He ties the pieces of cloth together to make it as long as an actual bandage would be. He’ll use it for when he takes the arrow tip out of his calf.

Zuko shoves some of his shirt into his mouth until all he can taste is fabric. He bites down on it hard when he sticks his thumb, index finger, and middle finger into his wound to get a good hold of the arrow tip. He shakes in pain and pulls the arrow tip out of his calf. He throws it away quickly, wraps the makeshift cloth bandage around his oozing wound as tightly as he can make it, and ties it together with a secure knot. 

Zuko looks at the waterbender, then, and she stirs. His breath hitches and he waits for a few seconds. 

But she doesn’t wake up.

He can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not. 

Zuko looks at her burn and feels his heart clench. He should’ve gotten there sooner. Maybe then she wouldn’t have been burned. 

A terrifying thought—what if she’s dying from the burn?—appears in his mind, even though he can see her chest rising and falling without any trouble. Zuko scoots closer to her, while his body screams in pain and exhaustion, and presses two fingers against her wrist. 

Her pulse is strong and steady against his fingers, and her skin isn’t cold at all—both really good signs.

She’ll live.

“Good,” Zuko mumbles under his breath, pulling his fingers away from her. He didn’t risk his life for her to just...die on him.

He looks at the burn again. Zuko can’t let it get infected. It doesn’t matter if he’s still bleeding, if he’s exhausted. 

A burn like that, infected, can be really fatal. 

It could kill her.

Zuko says a prayer to Agni quietly. He pauses a bit. Hesitantly, he says a prayer to Tui and La, despite being really unsure as to whether or not he got the waterbender’s Spirits right. 

He thinks he did.

He just...if the waterbender can’t heal herself, what will he do? Zuko doesn’t know where he is, so he can’t take her to a healer (not to mention—he doesn’t have money to pay for a healer). He’s in his Blue Spirit disguise, too—while the Blue Spirit is an enemy to the Fire Nation—in Fire Nation territory.

Zuko would’ve wrapped his shirt around the waterbender’s burn, but he knows firsthand that the last thing you want to do with a burn like that is put fabric on it. (Especially since he feels as if all the clothes he’s wearing right now are filthy with his sweat and blood.)

If she can’t heal herself completely, though, he’ll make her a burn salve, a paste—he’ll make her something. That much he can do for her, if she isn’t able to heal herself. He feels like he knows more than enough about plants, herbs and making medicine, thanks to Ursa.

Zuko moves closer to the river, and eases himself into it. It’s not too cold and not too deep. It barely reaches his waist. The river flows, and pushes him, but not enough to knock him off his feet. Zuko delicately tugs the waterbender over to him with her limbs, and carries her bridal style in his arms yet again. 

“Please, please work,” he whispers and dips her body into the river, only leaving her head above water.

Her burn starts glowing a bright, brilliant blue, and Zuko’s eyes widen in amazement. He stays still. After a few moments, the waterbender’s burn stops glowing that dazzling blue, and Zuko watches anxiously as the waterbender’s blue eyes slowly flutter open.

Then, Zuko freezes when her blue eyes meet his gold ones.

Oh, Spirits—she’s gonna kill him now, isn’t she?

—

Katara immediately went unconscious when Zhao burned her. She has no idea what happened after Zhao burned her.

The point she’s trying to make is—she has no idea how she ended up in a river and in Zuko’s arms. 

Katara doesn’t know what shocks her more—Zuko being the one to save her from Zhao (she’s just making a wild guess here—why would Zuko want to save his enemy?), or Zuko deciding to take her to a river so she could heal herself (again—another wild guess, because why would Zuko want to heal his enemy?).

Before she can ask him anything, though, her burn throbs in pain, demanding her attention. Katara winces, and Zuko notices. Without pausing to think about it, he lays her back down on the ground to where she was before. 

Zuko pulls himself out of the river and gets on his knees beside her. 

“Give me your hands, waterbender,” Zuko clears his throat awkwardly. Zuko reaches his hands out to her and Katara purses her lips as she looks at his hands cautiously. She reaches for his hands, and he simply pulls her up into a sitting position.

Oh. 

Okay.

Her burn really hurt when he pulled her up but she won’t tell him that. Katara looks at him for a few seconds, then says, “Katara,” to him. Zuko furrows his eyebrows at her questioningly.

She sighs quietly, fiddling with her fingers. “My name is Katara.”

“...Oh. Okay. Um, my name is—“

“—Zuko. Yes, I know.”

A beat.

Another beat.

Silence.

Katara cranes her neck and stares up at the night sky. At least she was right earlier about the moon not being full. With her right hand, she shakily bends all the water out of her clothes and her hair, and puts it back into the river. She does her best to not focus on how the burn keeps throbbing, and throbbing, and throbbing.

“I’ll be back,” Zuko informs her, stands up, and limps away into the forest before Katara can respond. She glances at the forest, expecting Zuko to be back any second. 

Instead, she ends up waiting. 

And waiting. 

And waiting.

And...waiting.

She groans. Katara knows she should be angry or annoyed with Zuko right now. She knows that should be demanding answers from Zuko, but she’s just so tired. Not to mention, she’s in a lot of pain. Katara bites her lip, praying to Tui and La (and to other spirits, too, of course) that Sokka, Aang, Appa, and Momo are all safe and sound.

Katara’s head snaps up when she hears the sound of footsteps close by. She frowns, nervous, as she stares at the forest. She can’t see past the first row of trees.

“Zuko?” She calls out, her trembling hands clenching themselves into fists. “Is that you?”

Zuko walks out of the forest, shirtless, a bundle of sticks under his right arm, and he seems to be using his shirt to carry something in his left hand. The shirt’s sleeves appear to be tied up to keep whatever he’s carrying inside of the shirt. 

He motions for her to come closer, and Zuko sits down. He places the half of the sticks down in front of him, and sets the rest of the sticks beside him.

“Um—here, Katara,” he jerkily thrusts a decently sized, metal canteen full of water into her right hand. 

Katara looks at the canteen in surprise. Wait, when did Zuko get this? Did he have this the whole time? How did she not notice that Zuko had this? Why is he being so nice to her right now? She focuses on the water in the canteen, and she can feel the water’s purity—it’s completely clean and safe for her to drink.

Huh.

“Thank you, Zuko,” she whispers, twists the canteen open, and drinks the water greedily. Katara hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she emptied Zuko’s canteen of its water. She moves to hand him back the canteen, but Zuko shakes his head.

“Keep it,” he clears his throat. “You need more than I do. So, just—just—keep it, Katara.”

“Oh...okay. Uh—thanks, Zuko.” Katara is so confused. At least Zuko also looks confused with himself, so that makes her feel less weird about this situation. 

Okay, well—no. 

That’s a lie. 

She still feels really weird about this situation.

Zuko looks at the bundle of sticks and then looks at her. “Close your eyes, Katara,” he tells her awkwardly, reaching out and pushing the bundle of sticks farther away from her body.

Katara swallows and nods stiffly, kind of feeling embarrassed that she knows why he’s telling her to close her eyes. He’s about to firebend, and he doesn’t want her to see. Zuko knows she’ll get uncomfortable and nervous when he firebends.

Zuko understands how she feels.

“Okay. You can open your eyes now,” Zuko says, and she does. 

Katara looks at the orange fire as it crackles, and she hesitates. She can hardly feel its warmth, and well—she’s cold. She scoots closer to the fire, and reaches her hands out. Her hands shake and she tries her best to stop them from shaking so much. She’s just cold. Right? 

That’s why her hands are shaking—because she’s cold. Her hands aren’t shaking because of the fire. Because if her hands are shaking because of the fire, and not because of how cold she feels, then that means she’s afraid of the fire. 

And she can’t be afraid of the fire. She can’t be afraid at all.

And she can’t deal with how she’s feeling right now because she really doesn’t want to get overwhelmed in front of her enemy.

Katara just places her right hand on her knee, and stares at the fire. Her mind tells her that Zuko will use the fire and hurt her like Zhao did. But when Katara looks at Zuko with her own eyes, he just looks exhausted. He has a makeshift mortar and pestle in his hands, and he looks pretty focused.

“What are you making?” Katara asks him and Zuko jumps in surprise. He probably wasn’t expecting her to talk to him. And she didn’t plan on it either, but she wants a distraction from her thoughts, and well—Zuko is a pretty good distraction.

He looks at her, then answers: “A burn salve.”

Katara frowns at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Why is he doing that? Didn’t he see her heal herself in the river? “But I’m a healer. You saw me heal myself, Zuko.”

A beat. “Yeah, I know.” He gets back to making the burn salve, breaking the eye contact he made with her. “But it hurts right now, doesn’t it? And you’re not healing it right now, even though you’re right next to a river, and you could be healing it right now.”

“I can do it,” Katara huffs. What, does he think her healing is just a one time deal type of thing? Who does he think he is? Honestly.

“Great. Then do it,” Zuko stares at her, lowering the clumsily made mortar and pestle onto his lap. “Heal yourself right now, Katara.”

“Fine, I will,” Katara gives him an annoyed look, “but not because you told me to, but because it’s hurting a lot right now.” 

Using her right arm, obviously, she reaches for the river’s cool water with an open palm, and Katara bends the water onto her hand like a glove. She almost smiles, pleased with how she’s doing so far. She knew she could do it.

Katara decides to glance over at Zuko, and Zuko just stares at her, his blank face giving her no hint whatsoever as to what he could possibly be thinking. Annoyance flares up inside of her.

‘Don’t focus on him,’ she tells herself in her mind, ‘just focus on healing yourself.’

As she inhales and exhales slowly, Katara calmly moves her water gloved hand to her burn—and right before the water can make physical contact with it, her right hand starts to shake, violently. She bites her lip harshly, and she lets go of her hold on the water. The water splashes onto her lap, and when it splashes on her lap, a few of the water droplets make contact with the fire. The fire hisses at the water.

Katara doesn’t look at Zuko, and bends the water out of her lap and back into the river. Her right hand clenches at her side out of Zuko’s eyesite. Much to her displeasure, her right hand is still shaking. She’s so—she feels so—

“Well, Zuko, I hope you’re happy,” she finds herself snapping at Zuko, anger and bitterness rising up inside of her. “No, really, I hope you’re really pleased with yourself, Zuko. I failed at healing myself right now. I bet that’s what you wanted—“

“Katara,” Zuko interrupts her quietly and scoots closer to her. “It’s okay. I finished making the burn salve.”

“Stop doing that, Zuko,” Katara hisses at him, frustrated. The bitterness and anger inside of her turns ugly, viscous. “Stop being so nice to me! You—you’re the Fire Lord’s son—spreading war, and violence, and hatred is in your blood—“

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the firebender says defensively in response. Zuko’s grip on the mortar and pestle tightens for just a few seconds, and Katara notices it right away. 

Good, she thinks. She wants him to be angry at her, to fight back. That’s what enemies do, after all.

“I don’t?” Katara looks over at him in pure disbelief. She could fight him right now—she really could, even though she feels so drained of energy. Maybe it’s the pain from the burn that makes her so tired.

Spirits—could she fight a firebender so soon after getting burned by one?

“How dare you? You have no idea what this war has put me though. Me, personally.” Out of habit, she reaches for a necklace that isn’t even there. That just makes her more upset. 

It takes her a second or so to keep speaking, but Zuko stays silent. “The Fire Nation took my mother away from me,” Katara’s voice breaks and she looks down at her hands, tears running down her cheeks.

The firebender’s grip on the mortar and pestle loosens. “I’m sorry,” Zuko looks over at her, his broad shoulders slumped over in what seems like resignation. “That’s something we have in common.”

Katara looks at him in shock, and wipes her tears off her cheeks. The bitterness and anger inside of her fades away as quickly as it appeared. Then, regret and guilt replace the bitterness and anger, and she finds herself wanting to apologize.

So she does.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you, Zuko. It’s just—“ her voice breaks again, and she feels so, so embarrassed of herself and how she just acted.

“I know, Katara. I know.”

—

Zuko wants to be angry at Katara. He feels like he should be. But his wounds throb and cry out for attention, and his whole body feels so worn out. He just can’t muster up the energy to be mad at her right now. 

And besides—she’s not actually angry at him, he doesn’t think. On his ship, he’d yell at Uncle, but he had never actually been angry at the old General. On his ship, Zuko was just always angry at himself. His patience would be short and it would never take much to set him off. If Zuko wasn’t so tired right now, he’d be yelling at the waterbender.

‘No you wouldn’t,’ the voice that sounds like Ursa tells him gently. ‘You wouldn’t yell at her even if you weren’t tired. You’re better than that. You know you are, Zuko. Just be patient with her.’

Zuko sighs and adds more sticks to the fire. He lays down on his good shoulder (no, he didn’t tell her about any of his wounds). Katara had stared at him with caution while he applied the salve to her burn then she fell asleep when he was done.

He falls asleep as soon as he closes his eyes.

—

“Zuko, remember how the turtle-ducks acted with you after you threw that rock at them?” She had asked with a warm smile. Her son nodded and grabbed a piece of bread, looking very nervous.

“See how they are with you now? That’s because you were patient with them,” Ursa watched as her son reached out to a turtle-duckling, his palm open with the piece of bread in the middle of it. Zuko looked up at Ursa anxiously and she nodded at him. It was his first time trying to feed the turtle-ducks after the incident from before (when he threw a rock at them to show Ursa how Azula supposedly fed them, and the mother turtle-duck got protective of her babies). 

“In the beginning, my love—it was hard for them to trust you after what you did to them. And you got impatient with them on the first day, yes, but you calmed down. You came back day after day; you gave the turtle-ducks time to warm up to you, to trust you.”

A turtle-duckling swam over to Zuko’s open palm, and put the piece of bread in its mouth. It quacked at Zuko quietly, and swam back to its family.

Zuko looked up at Ursa with a shocked yet pleased expression, a smile on his lips. He was too happy to even speak, really.

Ursa looked at him with fondness. “See, Zuko? You waited a long time for the turtle-ducks to trust you again. Wasn’t it worth it?” Ursa stroked his hair gently and Zuko nodded eagerly, reaching for more pieces of bread.

Ursa grabbed his wrist gently, stopping him from getting the pieces of bread. “But, Zuko, my love, sometimes,” she paused and he looked up at her. Zuko tilted his head, confused, but he waited for her to speak. Usually, when Ursa took the time to stop and think about what she was gonna say, it meant she was gonna say something important (but then again, Zuko supposed that could be applied to anyone while they’re engaged in a conversation).

“Sometimes, both with turtle-ducks and people, you can hurt them and wait for them to trust you again. But, look.” She placed several pieces of bread into Zuko’s hand. She nodded at him silently, motioning him to feed the turtle-ducks.

Zuko frowned and reached his hand out to the turtle-ducks. This time, only a handful of turtle-ducks swam up to his hand to eat the bread, but the rest of them just stayed behind. 

“You can give both turtle-ducks and people all the time in the world to trust you again,” Ursa spoke softly. The turtle-ducks ate all the bread in Zuko’s hand and swam away. Zuko leaned against his mom’s side. 

“But sometimes...it just won’t happen, Zuko. And all you can do is accept it and move on.”

A beat.

“Mom?”

“Yes, my love?”

“You’ll always be around, right?”

Ursa wrapped her arms around Zuko and squeezed him. “Of course,” she told him. 

He timidly asked her to sing his favorite song for him (it was a song from ‘Love Amongst the Dragons’), and she smiled at him. Ursa agreed and Zuko cuddled into her eagerly as the sun set in the horizon.

She began to sing softly: 

“When the pretty fire-poppies start to bloom, 

I know love just has to be around the corner. 

But, who am I to hope—to assume? 

Of course, I know that I am not the one for her, 

but maybe if I were to buy her a nice perfume…”

During the middle of the song, Zuko fell asleep in her arms, but Ursa kept singing.

—

Zuko wakes up when the sun rises (like always), and he sits up groggily. Zuko looks over at Katara, and yawns. He cranes his neck to look up at the sky.

“Okay, fine, Spirits,” Zuko mumbles with an eye roll. “If making me dream about that really nice time with my mom and the turtle-ducks is your—your weird Spirit way of making me be nice and patient with Katara, I’ll do it.”

He huffs in annoyance and looks at the sleeping waterbender. Zuko crawls over to her and pulls her a few inches away from the burned sticks. He tosses the untouched sticks into the pile of burned ones; Zuko snaps his fingers and the fire turns back to life in response. Zuko goes back to his spot across from Katara, and gets into a mediating position. He exhales, focusing on relaxing his mind and body.

After all, if he’s gonna have to be patient and nice with Katara, he’ll need to mediate for a long time today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally, zuko was gonna find the end of the sewers—like it was gonna be a dead-end with a ladder leading to the ground (and then zuko and katara would have to deal with people probably and i didn’t want them to deal with people yet). 
> 
> but then. i had thoughts, ‘cause in canon, when katara becomes the painted lady, right, the factory had these big ass drains. it would make sense for such a big place like the pohuai stronghold prison to have drains like that, right? well in my head it made sense so that’s what i wrote. i hope it made sense to you guys. 
> 
> also zuko is really trying his best to be patient and nice to katara after she wakes up. she just sees it as him not struggling at all with being so nice to her but inside, he’s just. yelling. so much. but he’s doing his best w her mainly because after he got the burn on his face and woke up on the ship (fuck u ozai), he was really grateful with the patience and kindness iroh showed him. he’s trying so hard to do that with katara. 
> 
> tldr: zuko knows how it feels to be burned and is trying to be as empathic w katara as he can.
> 
> leave a kudos and a comment if ur groovy!


	4. different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara and Zuko give each other hair cuts; Katara asks Zuko something important.

Back at the palace, in the huge, spacious courtyard, Azula and Zuko would have their firebending lessons. 

Azula, of course, was in advanced classes, while Zuko still struggled to move past the class for beginners. Azula always got praise and rewards for doing so well with her fire ending. 

Ozai never failed to make it obvious that Azula was his favorite (he’d even put in the extra effort to keep her away from Ursa).

Ozai decided that since Azula was progressing nicely (he had even called her a prodigy), he thought it would be a good reward to allow her to have friends—but just two. 

Azula chose Ty Lee and Mai, two girls born into high nobility, and she would play with them in the courtyard. Sometimes, she’d get Zuko to play with them, but it never lasted long. Zuko didn’t want to play with Azula’s friends. He wanted his own friends. He expressed this to his mom and she said she would talk to Ozai about it.

The next day, Ozai walked up to Zuko while he was practicing his firebending forms and stances. “If you ever catch up with your sister,” Ozai had said to him, narrowing his eyes at Zuko, “you can get two friends. But only if you catch up with her.” He had smirked a bit then, as if he knew something that Zuko didn’t know. He walked away before Zuko could think of anything to say, Azula trailing not too far away from him. 

“You’ll never catch up,” Azula whispered to him, and skipped to catch up to Ozai.

Zuko was determined to catch up with Azula, to get friends of his own. He loved his mom, of course he did. He loved to spend time with her, but—but he didn’t think it was a crime to want friends his own age. Ursa had assured him that that was a perfectly normal thing to want and that eased his guilt.

He didn’t want his mom to think he didn’t want to spend time with her. Ursa seemed to be the only person in his family that...that wanted him around. That thought he wasn’t...worthless.

He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of those kinds of thoughts. No—Ozai and Azula did love him, they just had a different way of showing it. They wanted him to improve, to be better. 

Right?

But then...Zuko didn’t improve, he didn’t get better. 

He didn’t catch up with Azula, and he didn’t get to earn having friends of his own. 

Then, before he knew it, he was on a ship after Ozai burned him, and that ship only had people way older than he was. Sure, when the ship would dock to get supplies, Zuko and Uncle Iroh would visit towns, but it was never for that long. 

And no one ever wanted to be friends with him, anyways. 

His guess was that it had to do with his scar.

He remembered asking Uncle Iroh something personal while they were sitting down next to each other. They were drinking jasmine tea in a comfortable silence.

Zuko cleared his throat, and Uncle Iroh looked at him and put his cup of tea down. Zuko rarely tried to start conversations himself, so when Zuko did do it, Iroh always made a point to give him his full attention.

“Uncle—is there something wrong with me? I mean,” a thirteen year old Zuko fiddled with his fingers. “I—why...why can’t I—“ Zuko made a noise of frustration, and Uncle Iroh smiled at him the way Ursa used to: with patience, with understanding, and with what Zuko assumed was love.

“Why can’t I make friends? Even back home, I didn’t...earn friends. Azula earned her chance to have her friends, Mai and Ty Lee, and I—I tried my best, I worked hard to catch up to her. I did.” He grimaced at how sad he sounded, how weak he must have seemed to Uncle Iroh at that moment. 

But Zuko convinced himself to keep talking to his Uncle. It was making him feel better, lighter.

“But I never did catch up to her, you know?” He squeezed his hands at his sides. “I never got to have my own friends like she did. I just...I don’t know. I… I feel...”

He couldn't say it.

“You feel lonely,” Uncle Iroh finished for him. Zuko swallowed and nodded. Uncle Iroh wrapped his arms around Zuko in a tight embrace. Zuko returned the embrace, heart heavy, his cheek pressed against his Uncle’s shoulder. 

“Prince Zuko, I know it must be hard for you to be on this ship,” the old man began. 

“I never realized how lonely it must be for you, how hard it must be to not be able to talk to people your own age.” His voice was gentle, quiet. “I’m not going to tell you anything that will give you false hope, Prince Zuko—I’m not going to tell you we will find the Avatar and go home soon, because that is up to the Spirits to decide for us. But,” Uncle Iroh grabbed Zuko’s shoulders and leveled himself so he was at eye level with Zuko.

Zuko was still looking down.

“Please look at me in my eyes, Prince Zuko,” He requested softly. Zuko hesitated, but did what his Uncle Iroh said to do. 

“Prince Zuko, my boy—I cannot get you a friend your age to have on our ship. But what I can do is, whenever we dock anywhere, we can go into town. We can just sit somewhere, eat a hot meal, drink tea, anything. For as long as you like, we can just be together.” Uncle Iroh smiled warmly. “I may not be your age, but I am more than happy to provide you with my company—and my knowledge. I can teach you a lot of things about the real world.” 

His eyes twinkled. “And maybe, one day I can teach you a firebending move that neither Ozai or Azula know about.”

Zuko’s eyes brightened. “Really? You’d do that for me?”

Zuko didn’t feel like mentioning to his Uncle that they already do that—that they already spend time like that together on the ship, because he wanted to go to towns with his Uncle, and he wanted to eat hot meals made by different people, and he…

Mostly, Zuko wanted to make some friends.

“Of course,” Uncle Iroh chuckled. “And trust me when I say there’s nothing wrong with you, Prince Zuko. Perhaps we can dock soon, and you can try to make some friends your own age, huh? I’m positive that you’ll make some friends, Nephew.”

Zuko nodded with a small smile, more excited about making friends than he’d like to admit. He was sure Uncle Iroh noticed, though.

Uncle Iroh always noticed everything.

—

Uncle had insisted that Zuko change into some casual Earth Kingdom clothes. He didn’t see the point in it, because their ship was obviously Fire Nation, but he did it anyway. They docked the ship at night, then he and Uncle Iroh checked into an inn.

The next morning, Uncle Iroh encouraged him to go out and meet some young people. And Zuko was excited—he really was, honestly, but he was also really nervous. 

He was gonna make some friends. Or at least, try to. And to Zuko’s credit, he did try.

He tried to talk to a group of Earth Kingdom boys who seemed to be around his age, and Zuko had thought that they seemed pretty nice.

But then Zuko got shoved to the ground and beat up by them—because of his stupid, ugly scar and his Fire Nation eyes. He ran back to the motel on the verge of tears, and when Uncle Iroh calmly asked him what happened, he got even more upset and lashed out at him.

They went back on the ship shortly after Zuko got back to the inn. Zuko never tried to make any more friends after that day, and Uncle Iroh never questioned him about his decision.

And then it took him a while to do it, but Zuko requested for the ship to be docked. Then he went up to his Uncle Iroh, and even got shy and nervous to ask his own Uncle—his own family, his own blood!—to spend time with him. 

Uncle Iroh smiled fondly at him and agreed.

Soon, Zuko got into the habit of getting the ship docked when it didn’t need to be.

—

“Good morning,” Zuko greets Katara, a dead trout in his hands, not even lifting his head to look over at her. 

She sits up slowly and yawns. She rubs her eyes and looks at Zuko again sleepily. “Good morning,” she greets back with a slight rasp to her voice. She clears her throat.

Zuko makes a soft noise of acknowledgement, but he doesn’t actually pay attention to her, he’s gutting the pretty big trout (with his bare hands? Why is he not doing it with his dagger?).

Well, Katara didn’t think he knew how to do that at all but she also didn’t think that he could make a burn salve—so she guesses that she should just keep expecting Zuko to surprise her.

That’s all he’s done so far.

“Why aren’t you using your dagger to gut the trout?” Katara asks and crosses her legs, staring at the trout in his hands. Her stomach growls and she really hopes Zuko didn’t hear it. She quickly grabs her canteen, unscrews it, and drinks from it. Maybe some water will silence her stomach.

Zuko responds: “I used it to cut the fish open, but I don’t want to use it to actually gut it. My dagger is very special to me. Besides, I can just wash my hands. It’s not a big deal.”

“Water?” Katara offers him the canteen. Zuko stops gutting the trout to look at her, and to give her a ‘Really?’ kind of look. 

“What?” She frowns at him.

“Katara, you just drank from that,” Zuko grumbles, “so no. No water for me. Thanks.” He adds the ‘thanks’ in a sarcastic, dry tone of voice. 

Oh.

Katara rolls her eyes at his tone, but still offers, “Then let me bend some water into your mouth, Zuko.” 

A beat. “I mean, I just—aren’t you thirsty, Zuko?” She bites her lip and glances at him. 

She feels like she’s trying too hard to be nice to him, but...but he helped her out when he didn’t have to. She can’t be mean to him after that.

His shoulders slump over a bit, and he nods. “Yeah, I am,” Zuko mumbles, closes his eyes, and opens his mouth. Katara smiles a bit, and bends some of the water from the river into his mouth. 

Katara bends water into his mouth until he raises a hand to signal her to stop. She does so, and puts the water back into the river. Zuko drank every drop with enthusiasm and sighs contentedly. 

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Then: silence.

But not for long.

“Hey, Zuko?” Katara calls out and fiddles with her fingers awkwardly. She looks at him. “What is this? What are we doing?” She asks him these questions out of genuine confusion—because she really is so confused. Don’t they hate each other, not trust each other? Why are they acting like...like they’re not enemies?

Zuko meets her eyes and he just shrugs his shoulders. He tries to mask the wince he makes when he shrugs, but Katara notices it (of course she does). She’ll ask him about it later.

His reply is short and blunt: “We’re surviving, Katara.”

“But we’re enemies,” Katara points out and crosses her arms over her chest, trying not to wince at how her left shoulder feels when she does that. “We’re supposed to hate each other’s guts, aren’t we? And aren’t we supposed to be fighting right now?” Her voice becomes small when she mentions how they’re supposed to hate each other.

If Katara is gonna be honest with herself, she doesn’t exactly hate Zuko right now—like, at all. He did save her from Zhao. She’s actually really grateful to him for that.

How is she supposed to hate him? 

Especially with how nice and patient he’s been with her so far?

Well...

Sometimes, he looks annoyed with her, but he hasn’t done anything mean to her. 

Like—take right now for an example, Zuko is just looking at her in pure exasperation. “Katara—you want me to fight you right now. Really?” He motions toward the trout in his left hand. “Well, I’m sorry that I don’t wanna fight you right now, I wanna eat breakfast!” 

Katara groans, rubbing her face. “No, Zuko—I don’t want to fight you right now. That’s not what I meant.” She motions to him, then to herself, and places her hands on her legs awkwardly. “I—I just...we’re supposed to be enemies! I—me and you, this isn’t supposed to be like this! You know that, don’t you?” 

Zuko purses his lips. “Yes, Katara. I know.” He looks at her face for a few seconds, then shakes his head. 

“We’re still gonna be enemies and hate each other and not trust each other, but…” A beat. “But for right now, let’s just focus on surviving in this forest, okay? Does that sound like a deal to you?”

Katara nods and stretches her hand out. Zuko glances at her hand and then at her face with a raised eyebrow. “I’m gutting a fish right now,” Zuko reminds her and Katara chuckles at him softly.

“Obviously, I know that, Zuko. I used to gut fishes myself back home, so it doesn’t matter to me,” Katara tells him. “Just shake my hand, Zuko.” Zuko shrugs and shakes her hand firmly.

They sit in silence as Zuko continues to gut the trout. Getting all the bones can be tricky, in Katara’s opinion. Back at home—

Oh, right. 

Home.

She’s so far away from it. She stares at the fire, and just thinks about home. 

About her mom.

—

“My little seal-pup,” Kya had whispered secretively to Katara while she did her hair. “Would you like to eat some sweets with me today? You know your father and your brother don’t like it when we eat sweets without them, so we’ll have to do it really quickly.”

She had finished doing Katara’s hair loopies, and her daughter turned around eagerly with a big smile. A three year old Katara giggled and nodded at Kya, “Yes, mama. Pwease sweet.” Katara did her best to speak and clearly as she could, but she still couldn’t pronounce some things. 

And that was okay. 

She was three.

Katara still had a lot to learn.

Her little, chubby arms reached up to Kya, demanding, “Up, up, up,” and Kya smiled lovingly as she lifted Katara up into her arms.

“My little seal-pup,” Kya crooned, and pinched her cheek gently. “I just love doing your hair, you know that? Hmm? Do you even know how pretty your hair is? Hm? It’s very pretty, I wish my hair was as half as pretty as yours.” Katara looked at Kya and pressed her small hands against Kya’s cheeks. 

Katara squished her mom’s cheeks and blinked at her. “Mama pwetty,” Katara had said to Kya in a whisper, and Kya chuckled softly, eyes crinkling with fondness.

“Oh, thank you so much, my little seal-pup,” Kya kissed her cheek and hugged her, rocking her back and forth.

“It means the world to me coming from you.”

Every day after that, Kya would do Katara’s hair, and when Katara was old enough, she practiced doing different Water Tribe hairstyles on Kya. Her mom was very patient with her and always found something nice to say to Katara when her daughter would do her hair. 

Kya never failed to make Katara feel loved, even when she felt like she messed up.

In fact, it was Kya who encouraged her when Katara felt like giving up on waterbending entirely. (Sokka would just call it weird water magic, and Hakoda was very supportive, but he only really knew about how to do non-bending fighting styles.)

“Please remember that it’s okay to mess up, my little seal pup,” She had told Katara with warm eyes. “It’s how we learn, how we get better.” Kya squeezed Katara’s shoulder. 

“Go on, Katara. Try again,” she smiled, and motioned to the water in front of Katara. 

“I believe in you, my love.”

Seven year old Katara nodded, and practiced pushing and pulling a small wave. Her arms trembled a bit, but she adjusted them into a different position. She inhaled, pushed and pulled—and made the wave bigger. She grinned—she never did that successfully before. 

“Mom! Mom? Did you see that?” Katara turned around, excited, and Kya laughed. “Please tell me you saw that!”

“I did see that,” Kya confirmed as she walked closer, eyes gleaming. “You did so good! One day, you’ll make such big waves that Tui and La will be jealous of you,” she said the last part teasingly. Spirits were never to be messed with.

Katara giggled, and smiled shyly. “You really think that, mom? You really think that I’ll make really big waves one day?”

Kya hugged her tightly and kissed her forehead. “I know so,” she said sincerely. “Do you wanna keep practicing or do you wanna go eat dinner?”

“Eat dinner,” Katara admitted. She and her mom had been outside for a while. Her stomach growled loudly and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Kya laughed, amused. “Let’s go eat, then. Gran Gran said she was gonna make us something special tonight,” she reached out for Katara’s hand and Katara held it tightly. They shivered, and huddled closer. It started to snow.

Together, they started to walk home.

“Really? Did she tell you what she was gonna make?”

“No, she didn’t. It’s gonna be a surprise for me, too, Katara.”

“I’m excited,” Katara beamed, “Gran Gran always makes the best food surprises.” She squeezed her mom’s hand in reassurance, “But don’t worry, mom. You know I like your cooking best.”

“I know, Katara. You always tell me,” Kya replied with a soft smile. “And you know I love you.”

“I know, mom. You always tell me,” Katara leaned her head on Kya. “And you know that I love you, too.” They talked until they made it home.

That night, Gran Gran made steamed fish dumplings, something she didn’t make that often but knew everyone loved. 

It was quite the surprise.

—

Katara played with Sokka in the snow. They laughed together happily as they hit each other with a snowball. 

Then, there was black snow, and all Katara felt was the bile rising in her throat. Sokka ran to get his boomerang and fight with the warriors, and Katara ran home. She had a bad feeling.

Her mom was still alive, but there was a tall, scary Fire Nation man with her. He yelled at her to leave and Katara flinched at his voice. 

Kya had looked at her with a small smile. “Go find your dad, my little seal-pup. Don’t worry—I’ll handle this. I love you.”

It felt like Kya was saying ‘I love you’ for the last time, and Katara was tearing up already. “I love you, too, mom,” she croaked out. The man hadn’t made a move to hurt Kya yet. She didn’t want to run—if staying with Kya meant that the man wouldn’t kill her yet, then she would stay.

“Go on, my love,” Kya pleaded, removing her necklace, and handed it to Katara with shaking hands. “I’ll be okay.” She met Katara’s eyes and she tried to smile as if everything was okay.

But Katara knew it wasn’t okay.

Katara held the necklace in her hands tightly, blinking away tears before they could fall. She gave her mom one last, sad look, turned around, and Katara ran as fast as she could, but it wasn’t enough.

When she and her dad got back to the tent, the man was gone. 

And so was Kya.

She could never forgot how the man had ruined Kya physically. The charred, melting skin—the blood, the badly singed parka, and even Kya’s hair. Just everything. 

The man had ruined Kya, ruined Katara, ruined everything.

—

“Katara. Um. Are you...okay?” Zuko asks quietly, not really sure what to do with a crying girl. He keeps his distance, knowing that he shouldn’t be pushing past the boundaries they set up. They agreed to stay enemies but they also agreed to help each other survive in the forest.

A few hours ago, Katara was fine and eating breakfast with him.

Now, she’s crying.

Katara cries into her hands and says some things incoherently, and Zuko just rubs the side of his neck awkwardly. He scoots a bit closer. “Can you—can you repeat that? And say it louder?” 

He fumbles with his Earth Kingdom dagger in his hands—then he realizes something, so he puts it on the ground, and kicks it out of his reach before Katara notices. (Zuko had realized that he probably shouldn’t have a dagger in his hands while trying to talk to a crying girl.)

He watches in silence as Katara tries to pull herself together to repeat what she said.

“Zhao ruined my hair, and he ruined my shoulder, and I—“ Katara cuts herself off with a sob. Her knees are bent, with her arms folded on top of them, as she hangs her head low and cries.

Zuko swallows thickly and scoots even closer. He reaches over slowly and places his hand on her right shoulder (the unburned one). Katara tenses up, lifts her head, and looks at him with teary eyes. She waits.

He squeezes her shoulder gently. “Listen…” he begins quietly. 

A beat.

He has no idea what to say. 

Oh—

He has an idea now.

“Katara—if you want...if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll cut your hair for you. You can cut mine first so you know I’m serious about it. And that I mean it.” 

Katara looks at him with surprise. She clearly did not expect him to say—no, to _offer_ to do that for her, just to make her feel better. 

She wipes her cheeks and sniffles. “Okay,” she agrees. 

Zuko blinks a few times. “Okay?” He repeats. ‘Okay,’ as in, she wants to do it? Or is he wrong to think that? Should he ask?

“Yes,” Katara nods in confirmation, crossing her legs. “I want to cut your hair, Zuko. And I want you to cut mine.” She meets his eyes and gives him a small, weak smile. 

Zuko feels awkward again, so he gets up to grab his dagger from where he kicked it to, and sits by the river. He turns his head to look at Katara, and motions for her to come to him. He moves his head forward and hears Katara come up behind him. Zuko hesitates, his hand on the unsheathed dagger. 

It’s not a good idea to give your enemy a dagger with your back turned to them. He shouldn’t do that. He knows that.

But he hears Katara try to silence a sniffle, and he unsheathes the dagger. Wordlessly, he hands it to her without turning around. Zuko warns her to not try anything and Katara says she won’t. He knows that if she does try something, he’ll probably just pin her to the ground. He won’t firebend at her. 

Not yet.

Not when it took Zuko a whole year to firebend again after he got burned.

Katara taps her finger on Zuko’s shoulder and clears her throat. “Zuko?” She prompts with some nervousness in her tone. “Do you want me to cut it all off and make you bald, or do you want me to just get rid of the ponytail?” 

Zuko exhales. “All of it, Katara. All of it.”

“Okay, Zuko. I’ll just cut off the ponytail first, then do the rest,” she tells him. 

“Wait,” Zuko reaches behind his head and removes the hair tie from his ponytail. He puts it over his wrist. Zuko closes his eyes when Katara gets a gentle, yet firm hold on his hair, and slices it off. A soft splash makes him look at the river. His hair floats above the water, and then, in seconds, it’s gone. Katara is careful and slow—and eventually, Zuko is very, very conscious of how he can feel the air on every single inch of his head now.

Katara is delicate when she starts to wipe away the strands of hair that stayed on Zuko’s head for whatever reason. When she’s done, she mentally prepares herself for her own haircut. Silently, she hands him back his dagger and sits down next to him. Zuko stands up and gets behind Katara.

“How short?” Zuko asks.

“This short,” Katara places her finger maybe two inches below her ear. “Can you do that?”

“I can,” he says, and, with a trembling hand, he does it. He cuts her hair the length she wants (he tries to make it as even as he can), and tosses it into the river the same way she did with his hair.

“How do you feel?” Zuko inquires, and she doesn’t say anything. Katara just touches her hair in complete silence. He worries that he shouldn’t have asked her that so soon.

And then, “Different,” is what she replies with. “And you? How do you feel, Zuko?” 

Zuko sits down next to her. “Different.”

“Hey, Zuko,” Katara turns her head to look at him. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

He meets her eyes and sighs. “Maybe. It depends on what it is, Katara.” Zuko has a feeling he already knows what she’s gonna ask him. 

“Why did you save me from Zhao?” Katara clears her throat and she looks down at her hands. Zuko keeps looking at her, though. He doesn’t know why. “I mean, I’m your enemy, Zuko. I don’t see why you would save me. If anything—it was probably gonna be better for you in the long run to just...leave me there.” 

A beat. “Is it because of Aang?”

Who?

Another beat. “The Avatar’s name is Aang, by the way.” 

Oh.

Zuko moves his arms so he can lean back on his hands. He looks at the river and bites his lip. “Well,” he starts. “I know Zhao and I’ve always hated him. In fact, Zhao and I, we fought in an Agni Kai together.” He smiles a bit smugly. “I won against him. He was so upset that he lost, he tried to firebend at me while I walked away, but my Uncle had my back.” Zuko pauses, thinking about how Katara most likely doesn’t even know what an Agni Kai is. (She’s from the Southern Water Tribe, how could she know Fire Nation traditions? And the same goes for him. He’s Fire Nation, he couldn’t possibly know about Southern Water Tribe traditions.)

“An Agni Kai is a duel between two firebenders. It ends when one of them gets burned or dies. I didn’t burn Zhao. I couldn’t do it,” Zuko just stares at the river. “He called me weak for not burning him, and he called me a coward for showing mercy.” 

He shakes his head and continues, “Anyway, I heard that he had you as his prisoner, and that he was gonna personally interrogate you. And I obviously know how he interrogates his prisoners, and I—“ Zuko curls his fingers around some grass tightly. “I think that you should know that I thought about leaving you there—just for a second, I thought about it, but I couldn’t actually do it. I couldn’t leave you there. I had to save you, Katara. Sure, part of it was because of the Avatar, but...it was mostly because of the possibility of Zhao burning you. Getting burned is something I could never wish, or want to happen, to anyone—not even my enemy.”

Zuko lets go of his grip on the grass, and he moves his arms so they’re at his side. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner. If I got there sooner, Zhao wouldn’t have even touched you. I’m—I’m really sorry, Katara. It’s my fault,” he apologizes, because he feels like should. She deserves an apology from him. Zuko should’ve gotten there sooner. Really, he should have. It’s his fault.

Zuko doesn’t look at her. He can’t. He just knows that she’s looking at him with a hate filled, icy glare—

Katara places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “Thank you, Zuko. If you hadn’t come for me, I don’t even know what I would’ve done,” she admits and Zuko looks at her in shock. 

He did not expect that. 

At home, after Ursa left (and even when Ursa was there to defend him), he got yelled at for a lot of things. Things he didn’t even think were his fault.

But this—this was his fault. Yet, here she is, thanking him. And he doesn’t understand it. Why isn’t she angry with him?

“Oh—uh. You’re welcome, Katara.”

A beat.

“Just so you know, I honestly don’t think it’s your fault, Zuko.”

Zuko opens his mouth to protest, but then Katara says, “Zuko, let me see your calf and your shoulder,” completely out of the blue, and he opens his mouth then closes it, not even knowing what to say. He’s really puzzled.

How does she know? Was he being obvious that he was in pain? He thought he was hiding it well enough?...

Katara turns her body so she’s directly facing his right side. “Come on. Take off your shirt, Zuko.” Zuko’s eyes widen at her words, and her cheeks turn bright pink. “You know—for medical purposes. Cause of your shoulder,” she explains awkwardly, and bends some water around her right hand like a glove.

Zuko sighs and takes off his shirt, doing his best not to wince. He turns so his back is to her. He hears Katara gasp loudly. “What happened?” She asks, placing her left hand on his back. “Why did you keep the arrow tip inside of your shoulder?”

He tenses up at her in unexpected touch, and grunts, “An archer got me in my shoulder and my calf. Let me know when you’re gonna take the arrow tip out.” 

Zuko doesn’t want to answer the last question.

“Are you serious, Zuko? Right now,” Katara tells him and Zuko immediately tenses up even more. She rubs his back with her left hand. Her hand feels soft, warm. It feels kind of nice for her to rub his back; her hand and fingers press into his muscles gently, moving in small circles. 

“Hey—just relax, Zuko. I’m gonna count to three, and then do it.” 

Zuko makes himself relax as much as he can, and shoves some of his shirt into his mouth. He bites down on it in anticipation.

“One,” Katara has obviously frozen her water glove—he feels the ice touching, going into the wound. Zuko bites down on the shirt, hard, and grips onto his knees. 

“Two,” he feels the ice get deep into the wound, and grab the arrow tip. He’s already trembling in pain. 

“Three,” She yanks it out and his scream is, again, muffled by the shirt in his mouth. Zuko keeps biting down on his shirt, his breathing all uneven, and then—

And then—

The pain gradually disappears.

Huh.

“Thank you,” Zuko sighs in relief and turns his body around so he can face her. He looks at Katara with gratitude. She smiles at him, scoots closer, and points to his right calf. He frowns and nods, untying the cloth he wrapped around it yesterday. The cloth was really wet with his blood. Zuko discards it behind him with a grimace.

Katara frowns at his wound, and props his calf up on her leg. “You can make a burn salve for my shoulder, but you can’t make something for your own wounds,” she states with a shake of her head, and puts her water glove on his calf wound. 

Zuko stares in silent awe as the wound heals, as the water glows that brilliant blue, and the skin knits itself back together.

“You’re amazing,” is what he ends up saying before he can stop himself. Zuko feels his cheeks get really, really pink.

Katara pauses and looks at him in surprise, her cheeks also getting really, really pink. “Oh—I, um, thank you, Zuko,” she stammers. She obviously did not expect a compliment like that from Zuko in such a...way.

To be honest, Zuko didn’t expect himself to say that either. It just kind of slipped out.

“...Gotta go,” Zuko scrambles to his feet, and walks into the forest without limping.

Maybe he should set more boundaries with Katara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed this chapter. i feel like i was very sloppy? idk, let me know what you guys think. leave a comment and a kudos if ur groovy!


	5. push and pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara wants to make a wave, and Zuko offers to do it with her.

“There’s love everywhere, Katara,” Kya had told her, holding onto Katara’s hand. 

Hakoda and Sokka were walking ahead of them; Hakoda was teaching Sokka how to hunt animals bigger than him. Sokka was an eager student, which was surprising to no one. He was always excited to learn any and everything from his dad.

And it was snowing—but barely.

Katara and Kya wanted to watch them hunt and kept their distance from them (Hakoda insisted they do it for their own safety). 

“What do you mean?” Katara asked, glancing up at her mom. “There’s love everywhere? How?”

Kya smiled, letting go of Katara’s hand. “Yes—I like to think so, Katara.” A beat. “And…well. There’s love in how I do your hair every day. There’s love in the way your brother always wants to play with you no matter what. There’s love when you’re excited to show me something, or tell me something. There’s love when your father asks about my day, and when your brother always gives me a hug first thing in the morning. There's love when your Gran Gran makes our favorite foods when we have a bad day. There’s so much love in our family, Katara.”

Kya squeezed Katara’s shoulder, and they stopped walking. Kya crouched down to look at her daughter in her eyes. “And—outside of our family, there’s so much love, too. Don't forget that. There’s love intertwined with someone—a friend, saying ‘I am here,’ ‘I understand you,’ and ‘I’ll give you the space you need’. There’s love in someone being patient, being kind. There’s love in a stranger being a giving person when they have nothing left to give. There’s love in the simple things, the small things; there’s love in everything, everywhere, everyone. This is what I like to believe, Katara, even during a war.”

“In fact, when I was your age, Katara,” Kya’s head shifted to the side, and she twisted her arm so the front of her hand faced the sky. Her fingers uncurled themselves from a loose fist, and she opened her palm. Her expression exposed how she was thinking of a time when she was a child; Kya had that faraway look on her face, as if she was reminiscing something. 

“I used to believe that there was love in snowflakes—even in the smallest one you could find.” A single snowflake landed on Kya’s glove, right in the middle of it, and it stayed in its shape for a few seconds before melting into the glove. Kya put her arm back to her side and turned her head back to Katara, giving her her attention.

“What about now?” Katara asked, her eyes big and blue, and so full of that look—seeming like she’s feeling that feeling that only a child could have. That adoration, that wonder. That curiosity. 

That naivety—oh. No, no. Kya knew better; Katara was not a naive child. Not at all.

“Do you still believe that snowflakes have love, mom?”

“Yes, of course,” She replied softly and hugged Katara. “Especially when I have such a talented waterbender like you for a daughter.”

Katara closed her eyes and hugged back tightly. And she was gonna say, ‘I love you, mom,’ but Sokka—Sokka ruined the moment. Like always.

But it was fine.

Katara would have more time to tell her mom that she loved her.

She was certain of that.

“Hey! Are you guys gonna come watch us hunt like men or what?” Sokka called out. 

Kya laughed and stood up from her crouching position. “Come on, my little seal pup, we don’t wanna keep them waiting.” She held out her hand and Katara took it. They started to walk again.

“Will he ever even catch anything?” Katara found herself asking out loud. “He hasn’t tried hunting like this before. He’s only fished before.”

“Katara, please have some faith in your brother,” Kya chuckled. “He might just surprise you. Especially since your dad is the one teaching him.”

“Okay, mom,” Katara nodded and they quickened their pace to catch up with Hakoda and Sokka. The snow was still falling slowly, barely. They kept a distance and watched as Hakoda taught Sokka what he knew.

It was rare for the four of them to manage to get away from the Tribe. Hakoda was always needed for something (he was the Chief, after all), even if a raid hadn’t happened for almost a year.

It was nice—even if it wasn’t going to last forever.

—

“I got berries,” Zuko emerges from the forest with what seems like a wooden bowl cradled in his arms. “And fruits,” he adds after a few beats. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his shirt and clumsily made shorts don’t look particularly clean. (Before he left to get the berries and fruits, Katara had asked to clean his shirt and shorts for him but Zuko refused; he told her how he cut his pants up to his knees because of his calf wound. She had scolded him for not waking her up sooner to heal him, but he said he didn’t want her to push her too much while she was still healing. She didn’t have a good response for that.)

(And Zuko will not let her leave their camping spot, much to her annoyance.)

“Great,” Katara comments and he sits down, placing the wooden bowl between them. She reaches for a fruit, but Zuko stops her, covering the bowl with his hand.

She raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed, and waits for him to say something.

He clears his throat, and motions toward the bowl and to the river. “You should—can you—“ Zuko groans quietly, mumbling a soft _‘Spirits, I’m not good at talking to people,’_ under his breath, before sighing. 

He rubs his face and looks at her. “Can you clean them before you eat them?” He asks. Then Zuko’s cheeks turn pink with embarrassment (when he blushes, his right cheek turns a rosey pink, and the skin around his scar on his left side turns a rosey pink). He admits: “I may have dropped some of the berries, so—yeah.”

Katara’s lips curve upwards with amusement and she raises her right arm. She summons some water to her hand with ease, and when Katara goes to clean the berries and fruits Zuko picked for breakfast, she pauses the second Zuko makes a small noise of disagreement.

She’s patient as she glances at him, as if she expected him to say something, and calmly goes, “Yes, Zuko?”

He looks down at his hands folded over his lap. Zuko looks at Katara awkwardly and clears his throat. “Please—um, please,” he adds quietly, sheepishly. “I...forgot to say please. Earlier. I—yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Zuko,” Katara smiles at him genuinely, and cleans the berries and fruits thoroughly with the water. She puts the water back in the river.

“These are mangoes,” Zuko murmurs, and grabs his Earth Kingdom dagger. Katara watches him in silence, and puts a few berries in her mouth, eating them. He grabs a red-yellow, oval shaped fruit from the bowl, and slices its red-yellow skin. He slices the skin in two straight lines, dividing the mango’s skin in four, even sections. Zuko peels the skin back to reveal the mango’s flesh—it’s yellow and looks rather appetizing.

Especially since Katara’s pretty hungry.

“Here,” Zuko hands it to her carefully. “Just bite into it. You’ll like it, I think.”

A beat.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll finish it. I love mangoes too much to let one go to waste.” He’s already peeling a mango of his own, and eating it with gusto, and looks at Katara expectedly as she holds the mango. 

She hasn’t bitten into it yet.

Katara looks at the mango and slowly takes a small bite out of it. She makes the happy food noise Sokka makes when he’s especially pleased with what he’s eating. Mangoes—this—it’s surprisingly juicy and sweet—its juice dribbles down the corners of her mouth, and she licks the juices away eagerly. 

This—this is delicious. 

No. 

More than delicious.

“Oh, my Spirits,” she says after swallowing her first bite.

“I know, right?” Zuko meets her eyes and his lips are curved into the smallest of smiles.

“This is—wow,” Katara stammers, looking at the mango and then at Zuko. “Mangoes are—“

“I know,” Zuko nods at her. They finish their mangoes in silence, and their hands are sticky with mango juice afterwards, despite their best efforts to keep their hands clean. (Katara gets some water and cleans their hands with it. Zuko said no at first but Katara insisted.)

They eat fruits and berries until the bowl is empty. Katara pats her stomach, satisfied. She looks at Zuko, and asks: “Where did you get the bowl?”

“I carved it,” Zuko gets up, and stretches his arms and legs, his body. “That’s why it took me so long to come back earlier. Carving takes forever.”

Huh.

He’s a Prince, so why would he know—

“My Uncle insisted on teaching me about survival and the wilderness, and I never thought I would be in a situation to actually use anything he taught me, yet here I am,” Zuko sits back down. 

His head, now bald, looks shiny especially right now since the sun is really bright. It also looks really smooth. Too shiny and too smooth.

She unknowingly, unintentionally starts to stare at his head, at him. If Katara could focus enough, could she see her reflection on his head? The thought almost makes her want to smile, to laugh.

Unfortunately, though— 

“What, Katara?” Zuko frowns at her, his hands curling into fists defensively, and his eyes flash an emotion Katara doesn’t know before it disappears. Like it wasn’t there in the first place. His shoulders look tensed up. “What’s—why are you staring at me? Is it—“

“Your bald head,” Katara cuts him off and nods. She feels guilty now. “I’m sorry, Zuko. It’s really rude to stare and I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“Oh,” Zuko mumbles quietly, almost to himself, and his fists uncurl. He seems to be more at ease, and the tension in his shoulders seems to fade. “Okay. It’s fine. That’s fine,” he tells her.

Katara blinks, and then something in her brain clicks, and she feels more guilty than before. “Wait, Zuko,” she looks at him, her eyes soft. “I wasn’t staring at—“

“—Yeah, I know that now—“

“—But, please, just listen—“

“—I’m sorry for assuming you—“

“—No, I’m sorry for making you feel—“

“—Katara,” Zuko says firmly. “It’s fine. Can we drop it now? Please.” He almost sounds tired. Like he doesn’t want to have this conversation. Like he’s had this conversation already, a thousand times over, and he’s just tired of talking about it.

And she can understand why.

“Alright,” she agrees, and they look at anywhere but each other.

She wouldn’t want someone to stare at her scar either.

—

Zuko strives to be like Uncle Iroh for Katara.

Well, not to act like Uncle Iroh exactly, but to be the person Uncle Iroh was for him. But for Katara. That makes sense in Zuko’s head, but regardless, Zuko is doing his best to be patient and kind with Katara.

He really is.

He remembers how he was when he was twelve, and how the pain was all he could focus on for a really, really long time. How he cried a lot when the ship’s healer would replace the bandages, and clean the burn, and apply various creams and salves to it; and how he was in so much denial when he realized that his hearing and eyesight were greatly affected by the burn.

He remembers looking at himself in the mirror when the bandages were removed for the last time and how he didn’t eat for two days afterwards. He remembers wanting to peel the scar off, to remove it with his bare hands because _he just hated it so much—_

He remembers it all and how Uncle Iroh was by his side through it all with no judgement.

He remembers—he—

“My dear boy,” Uncle Iroh had murmured gently, rubbing Zuko’s back, his shoulders with a big, steady hand. Zuko was crying after trying to summon a fire in his hand. 

Zuko tried to make him leave, but Uncle Iroh insisted on staying.

“You didn’t deserve this. You’re just a child,” the retired general’s voice broke, and he gripped Zuko's shoulders. “No matter what that damned man ever made you think, you didn’t deserve this,” he hugged Zuko tightly and Zuko clinged to him tightly.

“But it’ll be alright now, Prince Zuko,” He soothed him gently. “It’ll be alright, it’ll be okay now, I promise you that. I’ll always be here for you—“

_—and_ _I’ll always love you, my son._

—

  
  


“We need to wait here,” Zuko announces when she sits up and rubs her eyes, awaking from a nap. She looks up at him and he’s stretching, shirtless, as the fire crackles. “It’s important that we stay here, Katara.”

“You’re kidding,” Katara replies, her voice a bit raspy with sleep. She clears her throat and stretches her arms and legs. Her shoulder aches and screams for attention, and Katara silences it with swiftness. She’s gotten good at ignoring it—her pain—or at least that’s what she tells herself to make herself feel better.

“We can’t stay in this forest forever, Zuko.”

“I know. And we’re not going to stay here forever,” is all Zuko ends up saying. 

She waits for a few seconds. Katara feels her nose twitch in annoyance when he doesn’t even attempt to explain himself further. “So you’re not even going to tell me why we need to stay here longer?” She looks at him with a ‘Really?’ kind of expression.

“Fine,” Zuko sighs deeply and sits across from her, legs crossed. “My Uncle is coming. Or at least, I hope he is.” He frowns, his shoulders slumping over. “I left a note saying that if I’m not back in a day or so, to find Jun the bounty hunter, and come and find me.”

He doesn’t look at her.

Katara frowns at him. “But we’ve already been—“

“—here for about three days. I know,” Zuko clears his throat and rubs his arm awkwardly. “I know, Katara. He’s never let me down before, so I…” His hand curls into a fist briefly before he lets it hang at his side. 

“He has to come. He has to,” Zuko says quietly, still not meeting her eyes.

A beat.

“Zuko,” Katara begins, not really sure what to say. 

Zuko’s gold eyes flicker to her and he waits. 

He always waits—he’s patient like that.

A beat.

“...” She has no idea what to say to make him feel better. Maybe she can just change the topic? “Can...can you make me a burn salve?” She asks him at last, fiddling with her fingers, her eyes lowering to the fire. “It...it really does help my shoulder when you make it for me. I—thank you. I don’t…” Katara swallows dryly before continuing, “I don’t know if I ever properly thanked you for making me burn salves the way you do. So—I, um, thank you, Zuko.”

She could slap herself, or pinch herself. She’s should be making him feel better, and she just—

“You’re welcome, Katara,” Zuko gets up, dusting off his tattered shorts. “I’ll be back.” Katara watches him as he goes into the forest, the sound of his footsteps gradually fading.

She knows he’ll be back. 

He always comes back.

“There’s love in someone being patient, being kind,” Katara mutters her mother’s words to herself and shakes her head. 

No—her and Zuko do not have love for one another. 

This is survival.

And only survival. 

To distract herself, she moves herself so she’s in front of the river, and her element calls out to her the way it always does. It takes her a while to get the courage to do so, but Katara raises her arms slowly. She’ll just do a simple wave. She used to do those all the time with her mom, so—

She gets a hold of the water, and attempts to do a push and pull motion. All Katara has to do is move her arms and shoulders, and lean back and forth. 

She can do that. 

She can.

She—the pain—the burn—

The water splashes, and flows along the river, as if Katara didn’t have a hold on it just moments ago. Her lips curl in frustration and she turns her back to the river, trying her best not to be upset with herself. A few tears escape anyway, despite her best efforts. Sure, she can use her right hand and right arm just fine, but she needs both arms to fight in the war.

How can she fight if she can’t even do the first waterbending move she ever learned?

Isn’t she supposed to be...strong? A warrior, a fighter?

“I didn’t firebend for a really long time after I got burned,” Zuko speaks and Katara jumps in surprise, wiping her cheeks quickly. She hadn’t heard him come back. He sits down, grabbing the mortal and pestle he somehow made himself. Katara silently watches as he starts to make the burn salve, hands on her lap.

“I avoided my element for such a long time, even though the fire inside of me demanded to be used,” Zuko hasn’t looked at her yet and that makes her feel better for a reason she doesn’t know. Maybe it’s because she didn’t want him to know that she was just crying? 

“It was really difficult, but my Uncle Iroh was really patient with me through it all. I don’t know where I would be without him,” Zuko adds the remaining burn salve ingredients into the mortar and grabs the pestle in his free hand.

A beat.

“I know it’s hard, but keep trying, Katara,” Zuko finally looks at her and nods once. His gold eyes always seem like they are going right through her. As if they see her.

She isn’t sure how to feel about that.

“In the beginning, my uncle had me start from the very, very basics. Breathing techniques, mediating, stuff like that. What are the basics for waterbending?”

“What I just tried to do,” Katara looks down. “That was the basics. A simple push and pull, a simple wave.” Her voice trembles, shakes with emotion, and the shame and embarrassment eating away at her makes her want to curl up and cry. “And I couldn’t even do it—“

“I’ll do it with you,” Zuko says gently and she looks at him with shock, losing the voice to protest, to say anything. 

She just…

Why would he do that for her? 

She doesn’t understand.

“When my uncle had me start from the basics, he would do it with me even though he’s a master firebender,” He puts down the mortar and pestle.

She finds her voice. “But you can’t—“

“—waterbend. I know, Katara,” Zuko finishes the sentence and scoots closer slowly, facing the river. “Come on, Katara. Show me what to do, and I’ll do it with you. Don’t actually bend the water if you don’t feel like doing so. It’ll be alright.” His voice, always boyish with a rasp, sounds almost soothing, almost comforting.

Her lips quiver and she nods. She turns around to face the river, and lifts her chin up. Katara straightens her shoulders and back, even though her left shoulder throbs, sings with pain, and clears her throat in a desperate attempt to focus her attention on what she’s doing, not on what she’s feeling.

“Okay. So—raise your arms,” Katara raises her arms as she says it, and keeps her hands open, fingers hardly curled if at all. She doesn’t turn her head to see if Zuko did it. She just keeps her eyes on the water.

“Just—“ Katara frowns, knowing how she’s not good with her words or explaining herself. “Just watch me, Zuko. Watch what I do.” Again, she doesn’t look at Zuko to make sure he’s copying her. She just likes to believe he is.

Katara inhales, and makes the push and pull motion that she’s done so many times before. She doesn’t try to make a wave, despite how much she wants to. She closes her eyes and keeps doing it, moving her arms and her shoulders and her body, as the water calls out to her, but she doesn’t answer. 

Not this time.

It used to be so natural, so easy to just do it. To just make a wave. And now—now, it’s hard. And sleeping is hard now, too, regardless of how many flowers, herbs or anything Zuko can find to make it easier for her. But it doesn’t get easier. (Zuko says dark purple sun poppies are really good for making someone have a dreamless sleep, but those are only grown on Fire Nation soil.)

Her arms shake a bit, but she opens her eyes and looks over at Zuko. Her lips curl upwards slightly in amusement. Zuko is stiff as a board, the tip of his tongue poking out to show how focused he seems to be, and his arm movements are tense, choppy.

He pauses when he notices her looking at him. “What? Am I not doing it right?” He questions, frowning. “I thought I was?”

Katara lets out a chuckle and shakes her head, lowering her arms. “Zuko, you’re so stiff. And your arms—“ A giggle slips out. “Here, let me just fix it for you,” she smiles as she scoots closer, and reaches over. 

She gets on her knees and Zuko watches her with his one eyebrow raised upwards, and his arms frozen in place. Katara gently adjusts his arms, and with a firm yet tender grip on his wrists, moves his arms the way that they’re supposed to be moving. 

“This is how you’re supposed to do it, Zuko,” Katara tells him, and jokes, “were you even trying to copy what I was doing?” 

Zuko’s cheeks turn pink as he meets her eyes. He crosses his arms. “I was trying,” he defends himself. “I just...it’s not natural to me. You know that. I did my best, Katara.” His shoulders and body slump over and Katara pats his shoulder. Her hand lingers on his shoulder. She squeezes it so gently that Zuko isn’t sure if she did it or not.

He looks at her, meeting her eyes.

“You did do your best,” she agrees. “Thank you, Zuko.” Her eyes soften and she pulls her hand away from his shoulder. Katara gets off her knees and sits back down on her butt, scooting away from him—but not too far away. 

Their knees almost touch.

“Do you want to keep going?” Zuko asks her. “I swear I’ll do it right this time.”

“Sure,” Katara smiles at him, and they continue doing the push and pull until Katara feels better. She doesn’t make a small wave yet, but Zuko doing that with her actually felt—it felt—

Nice.

“Come here,” Zuko beckons her over when he finishes making the burn salve. Katara moves closer to him wordlessly. “I added tree sap this time instead of honey. It’s harder to get out of a tree than you would think it’d be,” he informs her. “And I didn’t add that much of it, but just enough.”

She notices that he doesn’t ask her if she’s ready to try healing herself. She’s glad that he didn’t ask, because she isn’t ready. 

She isn’t sure if she’ll ever be ready.

“Are you ready for me to do it?” He gets a generous amount of the smooth, sweet smelling burn salve on his fingers. 

Zuko is looking at her with tranquility, his hands steady, his voice certain and gentle as he tells her, “It’s okay for you to cry when I do it or after I do it. It’s okay, Katara. It'll be alright, I promise.” He said this the other two times he applied the burn salve to her, but it still makes her want to cry when he says it. Katara doesn’t get why it makes her want to cry, but at the same time, she does get it.

Katara bites her bottom lip, hard, and nods at him once. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly. Zuko applies it to her burn as quickly and as delicately as he can.

She cries when he’s done, just like the other times he applied the burn salve.

(And she cried every time he cleaned it with water. He’ll heat up the water in the canteen just a little, just enough for it to be warm, and he’ll clean her burn for her. He does it three times a day without fail, and he applies the burn salve twice a day without fail.)

He doesn’t touch her at all, but he comforts her as well as he can. Zuko is a big ball of awkwardness, anger and frustration, but he’s surprisingly good at comforting her. It—it’s—

Nice.

And maybe...just maybe it’s nice to be taken care of for once. Katara knows that when she rejoins Sokka and Aang, she’ll wear herself out and have to do everything again—but for now, even if it’s not for good reasons and even if it’s not gonna be for a long time, she’ll let herself get taken care of.

Even if she shouldn’t trust him, even if he is the enemy—he’s taking care of her.

And it feels nice.

Her mom’s voice and words sneak into her thoughts again, unprompted: _“There’s love in someone being patient, being kind...there’s love in the simple things, the small things—“_

Katara shakes her head at herself, as if shaking her head will get rid of those words. 

Why is—

‘This isn’t love,’ she thinks to herself. ‘Not at all.’

Zuko asks if she’s okay. She tells him yes, and he starts cooking a fish for their dinner.

‘This is just survival,’ she thinks as Zuko gives her half of the cooked fish. 

‘It’s just surviving with the enemy. That’s all this will ever be.’ She nods once, slightly, as if it will confirm her thoughts, make them a reality.

If Zuko wants to ask her anything, he doesn’t do it. They eat dinner, and small talk is made; then the moon comes out, and they fall asleep across from each other.

They are just surviving. 

Together.

That’s all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> zuko is Doing His Best™️ to be a good nurse and to be a good.......enemy to katara. 
> 
> i love katara dearly and she deserves to be taken care of. and i like to think she’d like to be taken care of, you know, since in canon she’s shown to do more than her fair share of things for the gaang, and that would probably tire her out.
> 
> and also, i feel like zuko would get self conscious about getting stared at. he tries to tell himself he’s used to it, but he’s not.
> 
> i feel like they’re rlly kind of out of character??? but also they’re in a situation where they have to rely on each other so it makes sense that they would be acting out of character?
> 
> but—katara trying to act like the pain isn’t bothering her and putting on a brave face, even if it doesn’t last long, does feel in character. i remember watching the gaang in the desert, and how katara was desperately trying to keep everyone together. she must’ve been really tired and frustrated, but she didn’t show it, she couldn’t, you know? how can she keep everyone together if she can’t keep herself calm you know? ive been in that position before, it’s hard.
> 
> um.
> 
> anyway.
> 
> i hope you guys liked this chapter. leave a comment on how i can improve, and leave a kudos if ur groovy!

**Author's Note:**

> i don’t get the format on ao3? to like, add chapters and stuff? even tho i reread the things a few times??? i’ll figure it out. maybe.
> 
> anyways! hope you guys liked it! i feel like i kinda rushed it but let me know what you guys think! leave a kudos and a comment if ur groovy!


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